Mahira Khan’s political drama Verna is all set to screen at UK Asian Film Festival which is scheduled to be held from March 15 to March 25 this year. The UK Asian Film Festival aims at celebrating 20 years of championing independent South Asian cinema by hosting a 12-day season of film screenings and events in Edinburgh, Manchester, Leicester and London. The organisers announced that the film festival would screen women-centric movies, and the opening gala, will feature an awards presentation honouring heroines that have challenged stereotypes, pushed boundaries and broken barriers to make a difference. The honourees will include Bollywood’s veteran Simi Garewal, who is also an acclaimed film-maker and producer. Regarded as one of the most inimitable female figures of Indian and international film fraternities, Garewal deconstructed the basic female heroine in Indian cinema from her screen debut in the 60s, and has since proved a consistent game-changer in the industry as both an outsider and insider. The actor will also lead a posthumous tribute to Indian actor Shashi Kapoor (1938–2017), with whom she starred in the controversial English language film, Siddhartha (1972). Published in Daily Times, February 9th 2018.