MUMBAI: UTV World Movies has tied up with Shemaroo World Cinema, for releasing its library titles in the Indian home video market.

Through this strategic partnership, UTV World Movies takes another step towards making contemporary, award winning World Cinema available across several platforms.

UTV World Movies has a library of over 600 titles from over 40 countries spread across languages and genres comprising Oscar winning and nominated titles such as The Lives of Others, Divided We Fall and The Counterfeiters. It also has Oscar nominated and other award winning films like Waltz With Bashir, Machuca, Your Name Is Justine and The House of Flying Daggers.

Shemaroo World Cinema has a collection of titles of several renowned film makers like Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, Pedro Almodóvar, Roman Polanski, and Claude Chabrol, among many others.

Through its association with Shemaroo World Cinema, UTV World Movies would release Oscar winning titles like The Mission and A Room With A View. The collection is slated to hit the Indian market by April 2009.

UTV Global Broadcasting executive director Shantonu Aditya says "After successfully launching India's first world cinema channel across cable and DTH platforms in the country, we are very pleased to expand our content delivery model to include home video and are confident of the combined strength of our content along with Shemaroo's acumen in the home video segment."

Shemaroo Entertainment director Hiren Gada says, "After receiving a good response for our Shemaroo World Cinema initiative recently, we are delighted to enhance our catalogue, with that of UTV World Movies. With UTV World Movies appealing collections, and our strong distribution network and wide product presence across the home video platform, we are certain that we will be able to optimise and create a product presence. The common objective of our collaboration is to grow the World Cinema market and create mature audiences."