The 27th Oldenburg International Film Festival has almost the world’s first film and art event “presented through Pornhub”.
The original German festival, known for its eclectic programming, and the largest adult entertainment site on the Internet were about to become partners. In May, with the global closure of the coronavirus and film festivals around the world cancelled or evolving, Oldenburg Festival director Torsten Neumann announced that even if Cannes, Tribeca, Venice or Toronto cancelled due to COVID-19, Germany’s most important independent festival would perform, whether in local cinemas and online.
Impressed by Neumann’s determination and looking for a trail in the conventional film industry, Pornhub, through Vice President Corey Price, proposed the platform as Oldenburg’s broadcast partner. Oldenburg would decide on movies while Pornhub, which handles 115 million views a day and had 39 billion exclusive searches last year would handle online traffic to make sure there was no buffer for arts space lovers in Los Angeles, Munich or Mumbai.
“In the end, it didn’t happen, which is a shame in a way; it would have been fun,” Neumann says. Instead, Oldenburg discovered a less mind-blowing spouse in Berlin broadcasting Pantaflix. through German actor Matthias Schweigh-fer in 2009, it would probably not be as big as Pornhub, however, with a presence in about 70 countries, it is not a minnow. His Los Angeles menu offers independent art films and music also more strongly match the profile of the Oldenburg festival.
“Or we’re offering special films to special audiences, it’s in our DNA,” says Rainer Knebel, pantaflix’s technical director.
From 16 to 20 September, Oldenburg and Pantaflix will offer a hybrid edition of the Oldenburg Film Festival to everyone. The occasion begins with the world premiere of Puppy Love, the first feature film by music video director Michael Maxxis, starring Hopper Penn (son of Sean Penn) and Paz de los Angeles Huerta (Enter the Void) alongside indie props Rosanna Arquette and Michael Madsen.
Other highlights come with Miguel Silveira’s American Thief, a youth hacker drama that combines fictional scenes with documentary footage filmed in the 2016 U. S. presidential election, the documentary Fishing, director Miles Hargrove’s account of his father’s 1994 kidnapping in Colombia, narrated through photographs of VHS Hargrove shot dead. at that time when I was a child; and Buck Alamo, american director Ben Epstein’s first feature film, described as an “acidic musical western. “
The films will be screened in two physical cinemas in Oldenburg (social distance will apply, as required by German law) and in six online virtual cinemas. Fans across Germany will be able to purchase tickets for individual screenings online, and some will be scheduled for the 7pm PST, an ideal time for Viewers in Los Angeles.
After the film, the online audience will be asked to click on a applause icon, opting for a scenario ranging from polite applause to a standing ovation. “We’ll translate the clicks into audio, and everyone who looks, adding filmmakers anywhere in the world, will hear the sound of the crowd,” says Neumann, who hopes the show will give the audience the “genuine emotional feeling” of being in a live audience.
By design, online projections will not be on request. “You have to be there in time, in front of the screen when the curtain rises,” Neumann says. “Not to avoid the movie, not to rewind, not to look at time. It’s not as convenient as VOD because we don’t have a convenience that destroys film culture. We need to confront our audience, and we hope they face each other, with movies that could disturb and amaze them. “
Director William Friedkin, who has spent a century of unexpected and disturbing film viewers, will be the subject of a retrospective of his career at this year’s festival. The 85-year-old pilot of classics such as The Exorcist, The French Connection and To Live and Die in LAis will not attend in person, but will participate in a Q&A consultation that Oldenburg will broadcast live around the world.
Neumann knows his 2020 hybrid festival style is risky. “I don’t know if it will work; we may just take our audience away,” he says, “but in Oldenburg, we struggle to be different. We’re not going to give in, now. “
This story made the first impression on the September 2 factor of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.
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