Mobitel wins award at Mobile World Congress

Kevin Spacey and Suren Amarasekera

At the 2009 Mobile World Congress, Mobitel won the prize for best operator in the MOFILM 2009 awards, hosted by double academy award-winning actor Kevin Spacey, amidst worldwide competition.

The award is a tribute to Mobitel's dedication to promotion the short film genre and active role in leading local creative and film producing talent to the international stage.

This is a significant achievement for Mobitel and Sri Lanka as GSMA Mobile World Congress is the largest gathering and exhibition for the mobile industry and a congress featuring prominent Chief Executives representing mobile operators, vendors and content owners from across the world, and this was the first time ever an operator was recognized for the MOFILM Best Mobile Operator award.

Kevin Spacey commented: "MOFILM to me, is another step in that ability for people all over the world who can now, with technology, make a movie, cut it on their computer, upload it and have an audience be able to see it," he said. The 49-year old, who won Academy Awards for supporting actor in "The Usual Suspects" and lead actor in "American Beauty," said any genre of short film played well on mobiles and that the idea was to give viewers access to content where and when they wanted it.

"Any time we try to put a parenthesis around something, with respect to artistic inspiration, somebody comes along and breaks the rules and before we know it, something we thought couldn't work will work", he said.