South Indian film production company Photon Kathaas Productions has announced plans to list on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and to raise funds to establish a corporate film studio focused on South Indian cinema for audiences in India and worldwide.

The new venture will target the South Indian audience of around 240m and global audiences for South Indian films. Photon Kathaas is led by chief creative officer Gautham Vasudev Menon, who is a Tamil film director and producer. Oscar winning music composer A R Rahman joins as creative adviser. Seymour Pierce is the nominated adviser and broker of Photon Kathaas.

Venkat Somasundaram, Photon Kathaas chief executive, said, “With our industry experience and Gautham and A. R. Rahman’s creative expertise, we are very well positioned to become a market leader in the fragmented and under resourced, but rapidly growing, South Indian film market. With our first mover advantage, there are substantial opportunities to cost effectively produce a range of multi-lingual film-based IP for exploitation across a wide range of the media, not just in the South Indian markets, but the global Indian Diaspora. 

The South India film industry includes the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. South Indian films have accounted for 60 per cent of the total 1,300 films produced in India in 2009 and around 50 per cent of the total cinema screens in the country.

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