Tribeca Film Fest offers more than free films online
The revolution in home viewing of indie films continues, with exciting new opportunities for people seeking fresh film content and flexible ways of seeing it. We’re urging people to check out Tribeca Film Festival’s online film offerings – these films are available free to anyone right now, for a limited time, running concurrently with the ten-year-old festival’s screenings this week in New York.
For the past two decades, film festivals have served as the marketplace for independently made films to find a distributer. The traditional road to success has been to premiere at one of the major festivals where sales take place (typically this is Sundance, Toronto, and Cannes); there, a film might be bought (licensed) by a group that usually manages its release first in North American movie theaters followed months later by its availability for home viewing either on a premier television channel, a DVD, or through digital on demand (rental) or electronic sell through (purchase) through a retailer such as Film Fresh. Indie distributers and Hollywood studios control the window of when a film is available for its theatrical run domestically and abroad, as well as its digital afterlife (which is why you’ll see some films move in and out of availability for rent and/or purchase – we digital retailers do not control this.)
Given this traditional cycle of film sales, Tribeca Film makes an impressive intervention to bolster the role of online viewing.
What distinguishes Tribeca Film as more than innovators but true leaders is the Festival’s role spearheading crucial discussions online on its blog, FUTURE OF FILM, on how technology is affecting film production and release. For instance, director Morgan Spurlock advises indie filmmakers about the need to be flexible about online distribution (Spurlock’s progressive and influential role gives us the ability to offer you COMIC-CON EPISODE IV: A FAN’S HOPE on demand at the same time it’s opening in theaters in a limited multi-city run). The impressive BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield authored an entry on the importance of the home video market and his idea that the gap from theatrical to home should be substantially shortened.
We like fresh ideas and technological innovations that can expand opportunities for indie films!
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In addition to offering Tribeca Film's JESUS HENRY CHRIST, we've got Tribeca's 2011 films that have already finished their theatrical runs and are now available for home viewing, including A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED ORGY (including the unrated version), PUNCTURE, REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR, and LIMELIGHT. Most of the other top-grossing films of last year's festival are still in theaters, either here in the U.S. or internationally, but we're looking forward to offering these (like the smash hit JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI, bought last year just before it premiered at TFF by Magnolia Pictures) when they become available.
