Worldwide Media Limited, the BBC-Times Group joint venture today announced that it had entered into a title sponsorship agreement with Elder Pharmaceuticals for the Filmfare Awards. Elder announced that it was going to promote FairOne, a fairness cream, that the company markets, using the platform of the Awards. This year's Filmfare Awards will be held on the 25th of February, and will be telecast live.
On the occasion of the tie-up, Dr. Anuj Saxena, Director Marketing, Elder Pharmaceuticals, said, "We are pleased to be associated with the Filmfare awards. This alliance surely has synergy and will benefit both the brands. Also the audience base of the two will only help to create a larger and stronger loyalty base. We have combined beauty and talent and we are looking not just at three years association but much more than that. We believe that together we can create magic." At a press conference to announce the tie-up between Elder Pharmaceuticals, the main sponsor of the event, scheduled for February 25, lyricist Gulzar lit the ceremonial lamp.
Gulzar, who has won the highest number of Filmfare trophies (18), became emotional when he took the microphone to say that he even now desired the lady in black as much as he had desired her four decades ago.
He recalled how he had been "extremely nervous to receive his first trophy for Anand." And it was veteran film-maker Hrishikesh Mukherjee who had done the honours. "I will never tire of her.
And I have enjoyed winning her. And losing her as the case may be," Gulzar said. Times Group president Arun Arora said, "The history of the Awards is the history of the Indian film industry."
An audio-visual of the Filmfare Awards over the last 50 years saw the audience visibly moved. Clips of the speeches by almost everyone from Dilip Kumar (winner of 10 trophies) to Shah Rukh Khan (13 trophies) mesmerised the crowd, who laughed and cried as they heard their favourite stars wax eloquent about the awards.
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