EU Wants More Indie Films Released Online

Reporting for Reuters by Ethan Bilby, editing by Paul Casciato

BRUSSELS (Reuters, October 23, 2012)

“Ever turn on your television to find the same tired line-up of last season’s movies available to watch? Or been disappointed about how it takes weeks for a movie to arrive on-demand?

While cinemas have always enjoyed privileged status when it comes to being the first to screen movies, the European Commission wants to level the playing field for digital outlets by encouraging the same day release of films across platforms.

Last year Google’s YouTube reportedly shelled out more than $100 million in advances to producers in the U.S. for the creation of original, online-native content.

This year, YouTube has turned to European producers as well, with plans to move on to Brazil, India, Japan and dozens of others sometime very soon.

A sign of the digital times, YouTube made a bit of a splash in Venice this year by awarding the first prize at the world’s oldest film festival. Not exactly front and center, but, still, the sidelines count for something, which is where YouTube announced the winner of Your Film Festival, its inaugural online competition for short films, spearheaded by director Ridley Scott and designed to find and foster new talent.

INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival where it won the award for best editing in the World Documentary Competition.

It’s the story of four struggling independent game designers, Phil Fish, Edmund McMillen, Tommy Refenes, and Johnathan Blow, and the three games, Fez, Super Meat Boy, and Braid, they fought tooth and nail to create.

It’s also the story of two independent filmmakers from Winnipeg,

Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky,

and how they’ve used the internet to bring their feature-length documentary to life in the digital age.

In a deal valued at $2.6 billion, China’s Dalian Wanda Group Co., Ltd. plans to acquire AMC Entertainment holdings, Inc. creating the largest cinema powerhouse in the world.