Barfi! En route to Taiwan, China and Hong Kong!
Mumbai, May 23 2013: UTV’s critically acclaimed blockbuster Barfi!'s international voyage continues. After its screening at Busan last year and its successful mainstream release in Turkey earlier this month, the movie is going to travel to Taiwan, Mainland China and Hong Kong too!
Barfi! which saw tremendous critical acclaim and phenomenal box office success in India, is now scheduled to release in Taiwan on May 24th. The film has also been invited for a special screening in the out of competition section at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June. This will be the first screening of Barfi! in Mainland China. Barfi! is also scheduled to release in Hong Kong in September 2013.
“I’m elated by the fantastic response ‘Barfi!’ has garnered overseas. From Busan to Marrakech to Okinawa to Turkey the film has travelled to many countries and now I’m looking forward to Barfi! travelling to Taiwan, Shanghai and Hong Kong too.”, said Ranbir Kapoor, lead actor and winner of Best Actor award at Filmfare, Screen, Zee Cine, Apsara Producer’s Guild awards for his role in Barfi!
“We are thrilled to see how Barfi! has appealed to a global audience much like its success in India, North America, UK and Middle East. In Asia, Barfi! has seen much success in key markets, after its screening at the prestigious Busan film festival last year, the film continues to receive accolades including the Grand Jury Award at the prestigious Okinawa Film Festival in Japan. Now Barfi! has been invited for a screening at the Shanghai International Film Festival next month. This precedes Barfi!’s theatrical release in local languages in Taiwan and Hong Kong!”, said Amrita Pandey, Executive Director, International Distribution, Syndication and Disney Media Distribution, Studios, Disney UTV.
Directed by Anurag Basu, the film has award winning performances by Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz and music composed by Pritam.
About the film: He is cute. He’s shrewd. The girls love him. The cops hate him. He can’t speak but is always talked about. His naughty antics will make you scream, but he will never listen. Cos he can’t! This May ride a rollercoaster of emotions with Barfi! - The Chalu Chaplin! – in Turkey!
Disney UTV Studios Bringing together the best of both worlds, The Walt Disney Studios and UTV Motion Pictures have formed one of the leading film studios in India. The Studio’s activities span across creative development, production, marketing, distribution, licensing, merchandising and syndication of films in India and worldwide.
UTV Motion Pictures as a dominant player in the Indian film industry has been in the forefront of bringing Indian films to a global audience and the last decade in Indian cinema has seen UTV delivering some of the most iconic films including Swades, Rang De Basanti, Jodhaa Akbar, A Wednesday, Dev D, Khosla Ka Ghosla, The Namesake, Life in a Metro, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Fashion, Kaminey, No One Killed Jessica, Raajneeti, Udaan, Peepli Live, Delhi Belly, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Paan Singh Tomar, Rowdy Rathore, Barfi!, Heroine, Race 2 and more recently AnyBody Can Dance (ABCD) and Kai Po Che!.
Over the years, the studio has worked with the most eminent production and direction talent in the industry including Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif, Vidya Balan, Kareena Kapoor, Karan Johar, Mira Nair, M. Night Shyamalan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Prakash Jha, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Anurag Basu, Rohit Shetty, Abhishek Kapoor, and Shyam Benegal, while backing new talent like Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh, Ileana D’ Cruz, Neeraj Pandey, Raj Kumar Gupta, Nishikant Kamat, Dibakar Banerjee, Vikramaditya Motwane, Amit Trivedi, Akshat Verma, Remo D’Souza and many others.
The studio has to its credit 4 films in the last 7 years to have been selected to represent India at the Academy awards; Rang De Basanti (2006), Harishchandrachi Factory (2009), Peepli Live (2010) and Barfi! (2012). In 2011, the studio successfully ventured into South Indian cinema with Deiva Thirumagal and Muran. Since then the studio had successful films in Vettai, Masala Café, Mugamoodi, Thaandavam and Settai in Tamil, and Grandmaster and Husbands in Goa in Malayalam. Today, Disney UTV has a library of over 80 films including Hindi, Regional, Animation and International Productions, which have been showcased in over 50 festivals across 35 countries, receiving almost 320 awards in the last 9 years.
The Walt Disney Studios has seen unprecedented box office success in India recently with MARVEL’s The Avengers which was distributed and marketed in India by UTV Motion Pictures. The film also emerged as the 4th highest grosser of all-time amongst Hollywood films in India. Prior to this, Cars 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 released in 2011 and were the biggest animation and live action titles of all time for Disney in the country. In 2010, Prince of Persia became the highest grossing western film in India that year. Earlier, Disney released its first live action Hindi feature Do Dooni Chaar in 2010 and subsequently after the success of the film, released Anaganaga-O-Dheerudu, a Telugu feature targeted at the southern audiences and second Hindi live-action film Zokkomon.
Coming up from the combined Studio is an inimitable slate with films like Ghanchakkar, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Gippi, Satyagraha and Chennai Express in Hindi, Sigaram Thodu and Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru in Tamil and many more.
For further information, please contact: Sujata Chanda [email protected] +91 9892490579