| MUMBAI: UTV has
announced the launch of its latest business venture UTV Palador - a 360-degree
initiative in world cinema under the brand name of 'Olive Collection' that will
have three verticals including a television channel, a DVD label and theatre presence. The company will invest
$15 million (Rs 700 million) for acquiring 1000 titles across 20 countries. "We
will be investing this over 3 years. Our immediate funding requirement is $3.5
million," says UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala. The non-Indian language movie
segment is estimated to Rs 15 billion by 2009 and UTV Palador believes that World
Cinema in their model could account for 20 per cent of that. "Our main
revenue source would be DVD and the TV channel. We plan to launch the TV channel
in 6-8 months. The theatrical release would be mainly a marketing tool,"
says Screwvala. UTV will be releasing 15-20 titles each month, he adds.
The DVDs will be priced at Rs 799. UTV is looking to acquire over 1000 film
tittles from 20 countries that have won over 3000 (cumulative) awards that include
the likes of Bafta, Cannes, Pusan, Berlin, Venice, Toronto amongst others, informs
an official release. The roll out plan for the Olive Collection would begin
across all of the platforms beginning this April each platform reaching the youth,
corporate, connoisseurs of world cinema across the country. The Olive DVD Collection
will release the world cinema tittles in a phased manner and will include special
features like a special short film that lends itself to the main film along with
bonus features by Master Director. The DVD would also have short film by an Indian
director as part of strategy to promote Indian talent along with memorabilia like
rare posters, photographs. On the Theatrical front 20 theatres across the
country will release the Olive Collection films with 2 shows daily that will account
for nearly 15,000 shows per annum. The Olive Collection films will be released
in Adlabs Metro and Huma in Mumbai, Gold Adlabs in Pune and in Sathyam Cinemas
in Chennai. The films will roll out to Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta in the second
phase , adds the release. UTV Palador's 'Olive Collection' will host a collection
of world cinema masterpieces from France, Japan, China, Russia, Poland, Denmark,
Brazil, Argentina in languages like French, Polish, Russian, Italian, Brazilian,
Mexican, Japanese with subtitles. The collection will feature film directors like
Akira Kurusawa Francois Truffaut, Michael Haneke, Wim Wenders, Chabrol, Kiarostami
and Kitano and others considered to have shaped the thinking of the world cinema.
The announcement was made by UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala and Rakesh Om Prakash
Mehra, the later being reffered to as its brand ambassador and partner. Screwvala
said, "UTV Palador's main objective is to ensure that the beauty, timelessness
and quality of the world's greatest filmmakers is not lost to Indians . It was
our vision to ensure that quality cinema is not a one off event at limited location
but a regular part of India's entertainment industry. In addition, this is an
extremely high potential category with no significant competition in the horizon."
Mehra ""In India world cinema has been available to a privileged
few. Our endevour is to bring cinema of the world to the common man in India."
A preview of what the World Cinema channel would evolve into can be viewed
for a limited number of Sundays on the Zee Studio channel starting 1 April. | 
