Cay Wesnigk na FSF

Interview with ONLINEFILM AG for Ekran magazine

Aleš Blatnik is talking with C. Cay Wesnigk the CEO and co-founder. Wesnigk is also Producer and Director of many award winning Documentary films, features and shorts. He is on the board of EDN ( European Documentary Network), AGDOK (association of German Documentary filmmakers) and VG Bild- Kunst (Collecting Agency for Creatives and Producers of films)

Internet is becoming overcrowded with various sites that offer films on demand that are trying to get attention from content producers. How does Onlinefilm stand out from the crowd and what is the mission of it?

Onlinefilm stands out as it is the only internet distribution platform that is collectively owned by over 100 filmmakers who have bought shares in the company to create a market place owned by filmmakers and tailored to the filmmakers needs. We offer new shares to those who would like to join our company help us to develop the system further and become voting members of the general assembly of share holders. Because we do not want to be bought up by a bigger company like Google and the likes no one can gain more then 5% of the voting power no matter how many shares he or she owns.

The site is supported by Media. Does this body see Onlinefilm as the main source for European movies and content?

We were funded by MEDIA as one of many so called "Pilot projects", this call was designed to foster the use of new technology to help the European film industry. MEDIA does not see us or any other platform as the major internet distribution platform for European movies. They have funded and probably will fund several more with different or similar approaches in the next years. They want to foster competition among different platforms to achieve plurality.

What are your marketing strategies?

We have built (and are still building) Onlinefilm according to the long tail theory: 1. make everything available, 2. help users find it, 3. make it cheap so people will not hesitate to buy.

What kind of feedback from the producers and from the end users did you get?

700 uploaded films, 400 of them in the last three months are a pretty good feed back from the producers already, but we also get a lot of feedback from the producers we meet on our tours at the festivals and gatherings.
We were surprised to find out, how many of our colleagues did not know how to rip a DVD and upload a film on the web, and are always joking with them, if there is a 13-year old somewhere that could do it for them.

The end users do buy films using our technology and that's the biggest compliment. Some of them have dropped us emails, how happy they were to have found the films. One was a gentleman from Singapore (an expat Greece), another a gentleman form the US who had paid for a film twice by accident and did not want the overpaid money back, because he was so happy he did find it.

You already partnered with Slovenian association of filmmakers. In Slovenia the interest for domestic movies is not great and attendance numbers in cinemas is low. How do you think you can reach a wider audience online?

To my knowledge Slovene films are popular and have for many years had an average box office better then foreign (American) films.
Given the close to no funding support for distribution and exhibition, Slovene film is doing great.

We are happy about every single film that is downloaded and seen. Even if only some hundred people more get to see a film that would otherwise catch dusk on the shelves, I would consider it a success. But of course the aim is not to reach only hundreds but thousands. Time is on our side.

Our partners from smaller countries like Latvia or Greece are trying to tap into the communities of expats that usually have a greater demand for films from their homeland, then the people still living there. I think this is a promising strategy.

Allow me one word about our Slovenian partner DSFU. They have done a great job so far translating and promoting the platform but their efforts were not supported by the film funding body in Slovenia, and also the producers were reluctant to upload their films for reasons not quite clear to me.

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Cay Wesnigk na FSF

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