Shyam Benegal's film to be screened at the upcoming film festival on Oct 25th & 26th.

The prestigious London Film Festival is all geared up to extend a warm welcome to veteran film-maker Shyam Benegal's latest offering - Welcome to Sajjanpur. Presented by UTV SpotBoy set to release on September 19, 2008 in India, the film is a delightful satirical take on life in contemporary rural India and will feature in the competition section of World Cinema at the Festival. This would also be the UK and European Premiere of the film.

London Film Festival will be held from Oct 15-30 at London and 'Welcome to Sajjanpur', featured in the competition section will play on the 25th of October at 12.45pm at OWE1 and on the 26th at 16.45pm at Waterman's Art Centre.

Welcome to Sajjanpur revolves round Mahadev, one of the few educated young men from Sajjanpur. Gifted with a flair for words. His ambition is to be a novelist. But life-circumstances demand that he eke out a living by writing letters. So, he sits next to the post office and writes letters for all and sundry. His letter-writing is persuasive and powerful and that makes him popular with the largely non-literate population of the town. Soon Mahadev uses his talent to manipulate people with amusing and sometimes not so amusing results. 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' is an entertaining, musical and comic interpretation of characters and events that are at once hilarious and poignant.

"Welcome to SAJJANPUR is a journey to the real India and shares with you some harsh and some not so harsh reality of that India. It also brings alive the simplicity and the beauty of the heartland which is far removed from the city life. Its Mr. Benegal's supreme and uncorrupted storytelling style that makes you thoroughly enjoy the ride to this India." Vikas Bahl, COO UTV Spotboy.

Welcome to Sajjanpur starring Shreyas Talpade, Ravi Kishan, Divya Datta, Amrita Rao and others follows on the trail of other Benegal films which were screened at the London Film Festival. These include path-breaking ventures like, Manthan, Kondura, Mandi, Trikaal, Susman, Suraj ka Saatwaan Ghoda and Samar.