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MR N.R. PANICKER, Chairman and CEO, Accel Ltd, (left) with Mr Omar Kaczmarczyk, MD, Long Tale, at a press conference in Chennai on Wednesday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai April 4 Hollywood-based content distribution company Long Tale LLC plans to set up an office in India, primarily to distribute Indian films abroad. The proposed entity will also distribute films from across the world in India.

Long Tale also manages intellectual property related to distribution of films, video, print and digital content. Films such as Superman, The Three Musketeers and The New Adventures of Pinocchio have been distributed globally and managed by the company.

Legal aspects

According to Mr Omar Kaczmarczyk, Managing Director, Long Tale, the company is discussing the legal aspects of setting up a wholly owned subsidiary in India. "In the meantime, we will tie up with local distribution companies in India," he said at a press conference today.

Accel Animation Studios, a division of Accel Transmatic Ltd, is the first animation and visual effects company that Long Tale has tied up with.

The companies will jointly work on re-mastering (changing the format of film content), re-formatting (reducing length of the film) and digitising Indian films to be distributed globally. "We have entered into agreements with Indian filmmakers to convert and distribute their films in a manner suitable to foreign audiences. However, we will not alter the intellectual property aspects while doing this," Mr Kaczmarczyk said.

New company

These films will be stored and distributed through a new company created for this purpose called Shockwave Collection. As of now 38 Hindi films, including Dus, Sarkar, and James have been signed and agreements with regional films are also in the offing, he said. Shockwave plans to make these films available through the Internet, digital TV as well as in cinemas. Long Tale helped Kaante, a Hindi action film, to go through this process before it was screened in theatres across the US.

Long Tale also plans to outsource a major portion of its production and post-production related work to India and specifically to Accel.

It will also mentor young Indian filmmakers to make Indian films for a global audience. "But we will not offer support for typical Bollywood kind of themes and films," Mr Kaczmarczyk said. An example of this is the recent agreement to globally distribute an animation series based on 133 couplets from the Thirukkural, currently being made by Accel

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