After an enthusiastic opening in Indian cinema halls across the globe, Ali Zafar’s Bollywood debut film, Tere Bin Laden is making its presence felt with Western audiences in the United States as the opening film at the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival in New York which started on 23rd of September, 2010.
The press response at this occasion was overwhelming. The director Abhishek Sharma attended the event but Ali Zafar was not able to leave for US due to his commitments for flood relief efforts in his country.
As Abhishek Sharma told Page Six of the New York Post, “I still don’t understand why it was banned in Pakistan. It’s a satire on terror, on the Bush regime. At the end of the day, it’s about the American dream. The only guy that can get offended by this film is bin Laden himself. Which is fine because he’s been offending people all this time.”
The Tere Bin Laden team is hoping to build on the momentum of Slumdog Millionaire and score a distribution deal, so that American audiences across the country will be able to see the film.
Finding comedy in terror is a theme also explored in the festival’s closing film, Four Lions, which tells the story of four Islamist terrorists from Sheffield, England.
The Friars Club has long been dedicated to giving new voices a chance to shine in comedy and this year was no exception.
