Welcome to the future of film distribution
Indie Screenings is a cunning bit of software which allows anyone anywhere to organise their own screening of Spanner Films’ three feature documentaries, The Age of Stupid, McLibel and Drowned Out.
We are big believers in the power of a bunch of people sitting together to watch a film, rather than those same people all watching on their own at home. Have a read of some of these emails we’ve received after screenings if you need persuading. For example What an UN-BE-LIE-VABLE evening.... I was moved to tears, like many, many in the big cinema hall. The director of X, a well-known airline, who was present too, said: “It makes me think: shouldn’t we ground all our planes today?” or We just finished our screening at Nambawan Cafe’s seafront open air cinema in Port Vila, Vanuatu – one of the first pacific island countries to have to relocate villages due to climate change – to a standing ovation! Thanks for a fantastic night!. From the feedback we’ve received, we reckon about 40 local 10:10 or Transition Town groups have been formed at Age of Stupid screenings.
If you’d like to organise a screening, you enter the details of your proposed event - where it’ll be held, how many people you’re expecting, whether you’re a small scout group or multinational corporation etc - and then the software works out a fair price for your license fee. Obviously if you’re in India it’s much cheaper than if you’re in London. And if you’re Shell it’s waaaaaay more expensive than if you’re Tiverton Climate Kids. Then you choose either to download a high res version of the film or to get a DVD in the post. Then get busy organising and publicising your event - loads of tips here. You are free to sell tickets at your screening for any price you like, keeping the profits for your campaign or your pocket. 100% of your license fee goes to the filmmakers and their crowd-funders – rather than anonymous middlemen – thereby helping the filmmakers make a living and encouraging the funders to back more films. Genius eh?
Indie Screenings was invented by Spanner Films, coded by Torchbox – and launched with a bang in May 2009, with Franny Armstrong’s climate blockbuster The Age of Stupid. Since then, Stupid has been screened 1550 times, generating more than £110,000 for the filmmakers and their crowd-funders and many thousands more for the people who organised the screenings.
