The Indian Film Company, the Bollywood producer which recently started trading on the UK's Alternative Investment Market in June, has invested $24m (£12m) in six new film projects to be produced over the next year.

The new projects bring Indian Film Company's slate of productions to a total of 20 films, representing about 60 percent of the IPO's funds of $110m (£55m).

The new projects IFC is backinginclude Ranjneesh Thakur's Loot, which goes into production in August as a co-production. That will be followed by Kundan Shah's Masquerade and Kunal Vijayakar's Fruit N Nut, both going into production in November.

For projects shooting in 2008, IFC is backing Bombay Velvet directed by Anurag Kashyap and Onir's Chashme Badoor remake. Finally, IFC will work with Indian director Priyadarshan on an as-yet-untitled 2009 production.

IFC's Sandeep Bhargava said: 'We are very pleased to have invested in these six projects which are exactly the sort of diverse and varied films that we envisaged when we joined AIM. Most of the projects are at an advanced stage of pre-production with casts in place or short listed. We therefore expect to soon be able to provide shareholders with a good idea of the kind of returns we can generate.'

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