MUMBAI: In its drive to open up UK films to Indian markets and audiences, the UK Film Council (UKFC) will showcase a series of independent British films this February through its UK-India film distribution initiative, ‘From Blighty with Love‘.

As part of this initiative, the UKFC has partnered with Reliance Media Works, the Mumbai Film Festival, BookMyShow.com, Fame Cinemas and UK Trade and Investment to organise the festival in multiplexes across Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore from 26 February to 11 March next year.

The initiative is an offshoot of the hugely successful ‘Summer of British Films‘, by which the Council organised festivals across several locations in Britain in 2007 along with the BBC.

This will be the first time when independent specialised British films will be digitally screened for the English speaking audience in India and will feature simultaneous screening of each film on multiple screens in 2K digital across the three cities. The movies will be followed by a ‘virtual‘ in-conversations with key talent from each film via the Skype technology.

Says UK Film Council senior executive for Export Development Sarah McKenzie, "While Reliance Media Works will take care of processing of all the films into 2K, films of the festival will be shown at Big and Fame cinemas."

‘From Blighty with Love‘, McKenzie notes, is an exciting example of the UK Film Council‘s drive to open up UK film to international markets and audiences.

"From classy literary adaptations such as Stephen Elliot‘s Easy Virtue and Julian Jarrold‘s Brideshead Revisited, to international hits such as James Marsh‘s Man On Wire and Armando Lannucci‘s satirical comedy In the Loop, we are confident that Indian audiences will be both entertained and enlightened by the diversity of British talent showcased throughout the season," elaborates McKenzie.

The festival will also include films from renowned British filmmakers like Michael Winterbottom, Sally Potter and Danny Boyle.