Telus helps bring Bollywood's 'Guru' to Toronto

VANCOUVER (mytelus.com) -- Telus is helping bring the Bollywood movie Guru to Toronto for its world premiere. And it's bringing Guru content to the mobile phone.
Several members of the movie's megastar cast - including Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan - will also be at Toronto's Elgin theatre for the Jan. 11th premiere. That's one day before the worldwide release of the much- anticipated film, which is directed by Mani Ratnam.

Guru begins in the 1940s and tells the rags-to-riches tale of a young villager (Bachchan) who becomes one of India's most successful businessmen. Rai stars as the successful industrialist's wife.

The star-studded film has developed a sizable buzz in part because it features a score by award-winning composer A.R. Rahman, whose credits include scoring Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's elements film trilogy (Fire, Earth, Water) and the stage musicals Bollywood Dreams and The Lord of the Rings: The Musical.

The Toronto premiere, brought to the city by Roger Nair Productions, Nav Bhatia Entertainment and Telus, will mark the first time Toronto has hosted the premiere of a major Indian film.

Guru content goes mobile

Telus customers will also be able to access exclusive movie content from their mobile phones through Telus' Apna Des content site, which features North America's largest mobile catalogue of Bollywood content.

"Telus is committed to bringing Canadians content that reflects their diverse cultural backgrounds, and is a proud sponsor of the world premiere of Guru," said Rizwan Jamal, TELUS senior vice-president of Marketing Communications. "By leveraging our innovative Apna Des content site, Telus clients can extend their experience of this much anticipated film right to their mobile phone with exclusive downloads including images, ringtones and video clips."

Telus partnered with Reliance Communications, India's largest telecommunications company, to launch Apna Des, a mobile phone based site that offers news, cricket updates, entertainment and cultural information direct from South Asia.

Apna Des, part of Telus' line-up of SPARK entertainment, information and messaging services. Features include access to thousands of regional and Bollywood ringtones, images and videos from stars. News updates and video clips are refreshed hourly, while regional information, entertainment industry gossip, astrology, numerology, spiritual information and vaastu shashtra are updated weekly.

Customers who download content from Apna Des between Jan. 1 and February 14 will get the chance to win a limited edition Hot Chocolate SPARK™ music box personally autographed by Aishwarya Rai and Abishek Bachan.

How do you get Apna Des?

Apna Des is available under "Ultra" channels on the mobile browser of most Telus Internet capable mobile phones. Users can text the keyword "APNA" to 5588 to receive an easy to follow link to the Apna Des site, or they can also text the keyword "GURU" to 5588 to receive a link directly to GURU content.

With files from cbc.ca