MUMBAI: UK-based distributor Protagonist Pictures has signed a pioneering "manufacture on demand" DVD deal with Amazon.com-subsidiary Createspace for the US.

It will make more than 50 vintage titles from Film4 catalogue available to American consumers. The deal will include titles such as Shekhar Kapur‘s The Bandit Queen, Pat O‘Connor‘s A Month InThe Country, Mike Leigh‘s Life Is Sweet, Mike Newell‘s SourSweet and Alan Clarke‘s Rita, Sue and Bob Too. They will be packaged as part of a branded Film4 Collection.

Nada Cirjanic, head of library sales at Protagonist, said, "We have a huge library. This is a really cost-effective and viable way of reaching potential buyers. This is a way for us to do the best we can for all the films in our library that are cleared and available for use."

The DVDs will sell at between $15 and $20. To recoup its set-up costs, Protagonist said it only needs to sell around 20 copies of each film.
Till date, about 40 per cent of the Film4 library, which dates back to the launch of the channel in 1982, has been remastered.