UTV Films' National Honour

UTV Motion Pictures PLC
16 August 2007





             Two UTV Films Bag the Highest Indian National Honour

          Rang De Basanti & The Blue Umbrella win the National Award.





Aug 16, 2007: BAFTA nominated Rang De Basanti and The Blue Umbrella, two films
from UTV Motion Pictures Plc (AIM: UTVM) ("UTVM" or the "Company") archive have
bagged the National Award, the highest Indian National honour for a film. The
former won the Best Popular Film for providing wholesome yet thought-provoking
entertainment and the latter, Best Children's Film. These awards, instituted by
the Government of India to pay tribute to the best of Indian cinema in terms of
execution and content and not just commercial success, bring home once again
UTVM's capability to merge commerce with intelligent appealing content.



UTVM believes in reaching out to largest yet most elusive population
demographic, the youth, through content that is fresh, edgy and entertaining.
The Company believes in being a creative catalyst, with a strong sense of the
consumer coupled with creative instincts whilst backing the vision of the
Director. This is supported by the core competencies of marketing and
distribution, worldwide and in multiple media and platforms.



Released on 10 August 2007, The Blue Umbrella, "a children's film for adults" as
Vishal Bhardwaj, the director, calls it, is a heart-warming adaptation of Ruskin
Bond's novella. Reminiscent of Iranian films, The Blue Umbrella delicately
traces the relationship between an eleven-year old girl and the village miser
and questions man's desire for superiority over others.



With Rang De Basanti, a film about disaffected urban youth, UTVM targeted the
imaginations of the young across the globe, laying bare their disillusionments
and offering a new idiom to frame their realities. It triggered a number of
initiatives to effect change in society and showed that UTVM has its fingers on
the pulse of the youth market.



Following Rang De Basanti, which grew to be a cult film in 2006 and introduced
Indian Cinema to a new grammar, in 2007, UTVM produced another cult film, Life
in a...Metro. A multi-layered, multi-narrative story woven around three couples
in a metro city whose lives crisscross, Life in a...Metro broke new ground. It
came without the mandatory lip-sync songs, was under 2 hours in duration and ran
in the international market without a break. With Life in a...Metro Indian
cinema moved a few steps closer to appealing to an international audience.



In sync with fare of international appeal is UTV Motion Pictures Plc's business
model too. In the 1990s, UTVM entered the Hindi film industry, which has a
haphazard working style. It successfully initiated a major drive towards
corporatization ushering in the Studio Model and placed a high premium on script
development, budget and time management and international distribution.



Results have started showing. Story lines are getting tighter, drama more
realistic and audiences are sitting up. No wonder, UTVM is in the forefront of
the "Indian new wave".



CONTACTS


UTV Motion Pictures Plc                                       [phone]
Siddharth Kapur - Chief Operating Officer

Grant Thornton - Nominated Adviser                         [phone]
Fiona Owen

Jermyn Capital Partners Plc - Broker                       [phone]
Dharmesh Doshi / Mehmet Ahmed

Bankside - Financial PR                                     [phone]
Simon Bloomfield / Andy Harris



About UTV Motion Pictures plc

Having become a strong player in Indian & International cinema with the success
of movies like Rang De Basanti, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Metro, The Namesake & I Think
I Love My Wife, along with international tie-ups such as a two movie deal with
Will Smith's company & Night Shyamalan's The Happening, the Company announced
its second motion picture brand SPOTBOY in May 2007, to coincide with the
Company entering new markets within India and developing internationally.
SPOTBOY will take over some existing projects but will largely develop its own
fresh content. This would provide the Company with range and flexibility at the
same time help bring diverse projects within the same studio through different
brands. Further information about the Company is available at
www.utvmotionpictures.com



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                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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