A "filmmakers'" festival moves to distribution
By Miljenko Skoknic
As Silicon Valley-based Cinequest Institute closes its annual Cinequest Film Festival this weekend, the question for startup filmmakers like me becomes: What next? The Festival has a unique answer for people like us: They’ve announced the launch of phase III of the Cinequest distribution label to give films that play the festival life after initial exhibition.
Cinequest is actually opening up a range of alternative modes of distribution by offering various types of on-demand content: DVD quality downloads, smartphone video, all this backed by a DVD rental platform, powered by Netflix. This venture is made possible by Cinequest’s business partnership with Intel (its Viiv media system), Jaman’s online PPV (Pay Per View) world-cinema distribution, Netflix Inc.‘s DVD base, and Cinequest Online’s existing audience base. The result of this effort is what Cinequest calls a “multifaceted, fluid system of distribution not previously available to filmmakers and film fans.” What’s really interesting for independent filmmakers is the possibility of maximizing their film’s profitability by assembling a “tailor-made distribution package” that replaces traditional distribution and exhibition with direct access to the film’s specific audiences and markets.
One of the most austere yet effective methods for makers of small films to gain their potential viewer’s attention is by word-of-mouth, so when festival word-of-mouth isn’t enough to carry the film to a specific audience, Cinequest’s online PPV system can provide such a connection by downloading the film directly to the viewer’s computer; encryption technology assures the creator’s copyright by impeding any kind of media duplication. And when you add a Netflix-powered DVD distribution system, you’ve covered almost the totality of the sources of alternative and independent film audiences.
The steady proliferation and increasing accessibility of formats for acquiring content allows for a diverse mix of mainstream and alternative films; independent distribution films housed by Cinequest will be able to compete in the same online space as more commercial-minded fare. “What we learned from users of Cinequest Online, our premier film downloading site, was that there was a huge market of people hungry for non-Hollywood fare,” said Halfdan Hussey, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Cinequest, adding that the expansion of worldwide film festivals exemplifies “the market’s want of this type of filmmaking.”
Whether online distribution alternatives will catch on largely depends on the convergence other internet film promotion sites, Myspace and Youtube being the most pertinent examples: almost every indie title has a page and a trailer with links to its official website and friends, thus extending the same principle of online social networking: to feel part of a community and get noticed. The interested audiences are there by the thousands, and if we count the entirety of worldwide internet users, perhaps even millions. The next logical step would be to facilitate the bridges between the existing and the up-and-coming online distribution hubs. The partnership between Cinequest and world cinema-oriented Jaman is already a step in that direction. As these venues progressively emerge into the filmmaking limelight, young directors and producers will readily incorporate Cinequest, Jaman and others into their distribution strategies and plan accordingly.
The fact that online distribution decentralizes the geographical origin of films by placing all types of productions on the same level of accessibility could potentially create an near endless array of films, which could potentially lead a curious user to choose films he’s never heard of, and that don’t satisfy him; this hypothetical viewer could once again fall back on tried-and-true word-of-mouth and conventionally released movies. But this hypothetical problem also poses an exciting prospect, a sea-change for the ever-growing community engaged in film culture. The multiplicity of alternatives filmographies, world cinema, independent or otherwise would cultivate, in time, a new and expanded sense of community among the worldwide audience that takes film culture to heart. Film blogs and similar sites exchange opinions and engage in lengthy discussions at an incredibly accelerating rate, creating a grassroots form of film expectation and anticipation, effects which have yet to be explored and experimented further; we already have a sense of how crucial web-based promotion is for captivating a film’s undiscovered audience these days. Will filmmakers and audiences find a way to continue to build a sense of community onto the world wide web? The hub for such an exchange now exists; the distance between you knowing there’s a film out there and you wanting to see it is only a few clicks away.
03.09.2007