Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) Limited, the country’s leading utility vehicle manufacturer, had declared the winners of its short movie contest around its XUV500 Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) on February 19, 2013. The M&M content invited entries based on ‘May your life be full of stories’ central theme, from short film makers residing all across length and breadth of the country. Motivating the filmmakers was a brand new XUV500 model, as the coveted grand prize.
Mahindra organised short film contest in association with the 48 Hours Film Project that has been organising such film festivals in the country, since 2009. As per reports, over 200 entries were received in the contest, from which only 23 filmmakers were short listed for the grand prize of Mahindra XUV500 SUV.
The Best Film Winner and Best story titles went to the movie ‘Deal’, directed by Anshul Joshi, whereas the first and second runner up awards went to the movies- ‘Elina’ (directed by Anupam Mishra) and ‘Memorable Journey’ (Directed by Taranjeet Singh), respectively. The Audience Choice and Best music awards were snatched by Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam’s short movie called ‘Junun.’ Abhijit Kokate took the award of Best Direction for his short movie- ‘Vanishing Hitch-hiker’, while Ankit Mehrotra received Best Editing award for his ‘The Legend of Shyamlal Darzee’ short film. The Best Actor award went to Shaurya Singh’s ‘Shaadi Ka Driver’, whereas Prashant Sehgal’s movie ‘Disha’ received the Best Actress title.
Expressing his delight on the occasion, Vivek Nayer, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Automotive Division, Mahindra and Mahindra, was quoted as saying, “People are constantly seeking new and interesting experiences in their lives that lead to exciting new discoveries. New experiences are the new wealth in today’s world. The XUV500 brand has successfully created fascinating stories in the lives of our customers. Hence, we decided to create this short film contest to bring alive XUV500’s brand theme of ‘May your life be full of stories’.”
Nayer also said, “It has been a great experience for me personally to go through all these films as a jury member. Each and every film had its own unique story-telling style. I would like to thank and compliment not just the winners but all participants who contributed to make these fantastic short films with the XUV500.”
Further, the 23 short listed filmmakers were provided with XUV500 model for 5 days and were assigned to make a short film based on the same theme within 10 days. The contest jury was headed by Shimit Amin (Chak De, Director), (Creative Head, Hungama Digital), Robby Mathew (Creative Director, Interface Communication), Carlton D’silva and Vivek Nayer. Apart from the XUV500 grand prize for the winner, the runners up filmmaker were presented with a Canon DSLR professional camera (EOS 550D) and an Apple iPad.
