Berlinale shorts launch on SVOD

Shorts from the ongoing Berlinale film festival in Germany will be screened internationally on the MUBI subscription-video-on-demand service.

The shorts will be on the MUBI service for the duration of the festival. Short filmmakers submit their films in competition for the annual Golden Bear award at Berlinale. The MUBI line-up includes last year’s Golden Bear winner As Long as Shotguns Remain, which will be making its international debut on the SVOD service.

Other shorts on offer include The Intervention, from filmmaking pair the Duplass brothers, who recently agreed a deal with Netflix. 2013 Golden Bear winner The Runaway will also feature, as will 2003 winner (A)Torsion.

MUBI founder and CEO Efe Cakarel said: “We are incredibly excited to be joining Berlinale to celebrate 60 years of visionary work, something virtually unheard of for short films, and we believe collaborations such as this are the perfect way for the world’s most high profile festivals to reach film lovers all over the world.”

Maike Mia Höhne, Berlinale Shorts curator, added: “We have celebrated and rewarded excellence in shorts for the past 60 years, and partnering with MUBI on such a unique collaboration is a fantastic way to honour our heritage, ensuring that some of the best short films celebrated by our festival will be able to be enjoyed by all audiences, on-demand, wherever they are.”

Having started out as a video-rental business, MUBI is now an SVOD service specialising in movies. It has a regularly refreshed selection of 30 movies for a monthly fee of £2.99 or €4.99 (US$4.56).

The firm recently raised US$15 million in additional funding in a financing round from a trio of private equity firms – MMC Ventures, White Star Capital and Floreat Group – and said it will use the cash to fund new studio deals and has recently struck agreements for content from Entertainment One, Icon and StudioCanal.