UFO Moviez to venture into Bengali film industry

Kolkata, May 23: UFO Moviez, a subsidiary of the one billion dollar Apollo Group, is venturing into the Bengali film industry.

UFO, the digital cinema service provider, is operational in about 15 theatres in the state.

Speaking to newspersons at the announcement of the venture, Vice- Chairman UFO Moviez Raaja Kanwar said, ''Digital cinema via satellite is the only way to prevent piracy and considering the spurt in the Bengali film industry, we have decided to extend our service network to this sector.'' UFO Moviez has been providing service for the past one year.

Elaborating on his venture, Mr Kanwar said, ''We are ready to provide service for both art and commercial movies. We are waiting for producers to use the technology. This will benefit them as the cost of print will come down with the improvement in picture and sound quality.'' At present UFO Moviez have seeded over 650 theatres in India.

''We are planning to expand our consumer base to 2,000 by the end of this year,'' he asserted.

Iterating on the advantage of this technology Mr Kanwar said ''The film reels will be stored, transmitted, retrieved and replayed in its pristine form without compromising on the quality, whereas, in a regular reel the usage gradually leads to depreciation of the quality of the reel.'' Highlighting their long term plans he said, ''We are planning to increase our distributor base and gradually set up a library which will have the collection of all the UFO Moviez.'' The advertising revenue from a movie, as per the present contract with the distributors, was shared in the ratio of 80:20. ''The contract rate for Bengali movies will be decided later,'' Mr Kanwar informed.

Elaborating on their world wide expansion plan Mr Kanwar said, ''We are there in Sri Lanka and plan to extend our service to the neighbouring countries including Dubai and Mauritius where the Hindi movies are gaining strength.'' The company is also planning to gain momentum in the regional language movies of those countries, he stated.

UNI