The Locarno International Film Festival has launched a new industry platform, Heritage Online, to help classic art house films reach a new audience online.
Registration for Heritage Online opens in July. The platform will have its official launch during this year's online version of the Locarno festival in early August, where there will be a series of dedicated pitching sessions as part of the Locarno Pro days . For Locarno, the initiative fits nicely to its goal of bringing undiscovered or under-appreciated art house cinema to the world. The festival says the ultimate goal is to bring the “hidden treasures” of the past 120 years of cinema on to today's digital audiences.
Heritage Online will be set up as an online database of film titles. Streaming companies will be able to watch available titles, see detailed technical information and get in touch directly with rights holders to negotiate deals.
Like Dennis McKeithan is a Pennsylvania prison inmate, Indie Pennsylvania Filmmaker Lance Weiler said: 'like a drug dealer in a movie, in a '94 head-on collision w/ a garbage truck I went out the windshield after first breaking my damn jaw on the cotton-picking steering wheel.'