Mumbai-based Palador Pictures, which aims to promote world cinema in the Indian sub-continent, has tied up with 24-hour movie channel Zee Studio to showcase 26 films from its catalogue.

Starting April 2008, the channel will dedicated a Sunday slot to sub-titled films from directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Jim Jarmusch.

Last year Palador released box sets of films by Akira Kurosawa, Wong Kar Wai and a world cinema assorted box set. Individual titles will soon be available on DVD through a deal with Moser Baer.

'The final frontier was TV,' said Palador founder and managing director Gautam Shiknis. 'World Cinema will beam into the discerning viewers' homes.'

Mohan Polamar, co-founder and joint MD of Palador, said: 'Palador's quest is to bring the language of cinema into India. Our focus is to generate popularity for this content and therefore our philosophy is to be agnostic to the medium and partner.'

He added that Palador's mandate is about both content and programming that content to suit different needs via television, theatrical release, film festivals, film clubs, DVD, internet and mobile, among other platforms.

Palador previously had an eight-movie deal with Tata Sky's pay-per-view channel Showcase, which ran for one month starting last October.

Among Palador's recent acquisitions is Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary Shine A Light. Palador plans to release and distribute up to 50 prints of the film in June, and combine the screening of the film with live gigs performed by local bands across the country in exclusive clubs.

Simultaneously, India 's UTV Software Communications has launched its own world movies channel called World Movies or WM.

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