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Karan Johar recalls how dad Yash Johar stood alone at Cannes market to sell K3G, paved the way for Shah Rukh’s stardom in Germany: ‘I was like why’ 

While Yash Johar's insistence to sell K3G at Cannes market in 2002 appeared absurd at that time, it led to Shah Rukh Khan emerging as massive star in Germany. The same year, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas was screened at the film festival.

K3GCannes approached Karan Johar for K3G's world premiere. (Photo: IMDb)

As Cannes 2025 is underway, Karan Johar recently recalled the time when he attended the festival for the first time. The organisers of Cannes wanted the director-producer to bring his film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham to the festival for its world premiere. However, that didn’t pan out as planned, eventually Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas making it to the red carpet, while Yash Johar sold Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham to an European for USD 5000.

In a recent conversation with Galatta Plus, Karan Johar shared it was the year 2002 when he first attended the grand International Film Festival, which left him awestruck. He recalled, “The very first film festival that I actually went to was Cannes. It was 2002. At that time, the Cannes reached out for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham to do this big gala premiere. They wanted this big Bollywood film. They came to me around October-November 2001. Kabhi Khushi was scheduled to release in December 2001. So for me to make that Cannes red carpet meant delaying my film for about seven months. I couldn’t afford that. And the right film was then Devdas. Aishwarya made her global entry. Shah Rukh was on that red carpet.”

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Karan Johar shared how the same year he and his father put up a stall at the Cannes market for 10 days. “my father opened a store at the Cannes market with Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and he stood alone. We were there for 10 days and my dad told me, ‘son, you go watch movies, I am here’. At that time I watched a lot of movies and also attended the Devdas screening. I got soaked into the glamour of Cannes but what was interesting was that my father sold our movie to Stephen, he was a very kind gentleman, for $5000 for Europe. I was like, ‘Why Papa? why 5000?’ He was like, ‘Kya pata kuch hojaye… but this is the only sale we made in those 10 days.'”

The Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham director added, “He passed away in 2004 but what he didn’t see is the impact of what K3G began in Europe and went on to do an X amount. The film is renamed as La Famille indienne in French. Shah Rukh is a massive star in Germany and all his movies started releasing after that. K3G kind of began the journey.”

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