By Hoai-Tran Bui/April 20, 2020 11:30 am EST
“For films playing the festival that are looking for distribution/sales, screening for free online can be looked at problematically,” a representative for a SXSW movie told Inverse. “Distributors traditionally require exclusive distribution rights, and playing any online platform publicly could infringe upon this.”
“If they were committed to buying the movies at a reasonable rate, that would be an incredible collaboration,” an anonymous producer told Inverse. “That would be newsworthy. They would be heroes of the industry.”
“Content is currency,” Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian added to Inverse. “If a movie has been out there on a platform, free to everybody, it diminishes the value and the exclusivity of it.”
However, a few SXSW films will still be screening on the online platform Stage 32, which recently announced it is launching an event to screen films impacted by the cancellation or postponement of film festivals. However, the Stage 32 screening platform is limited to its network of professionals and members, and filmmakers can choose whether to screen their films privately or publicly. SXSW short filmmakers have also taken to Vimeo to make their short films publicly available online.
