Aiming to provide a greater level of visibility and accessibility for the films of its members, the German Producers Association (VDFP), which represents over 100 independent film and TV production companies in Germany, last week launched its own TVoD platform, KinoHerz. The transactional video-on-demand service is accessible globally, yet the films are individually geo-blocked according to rights availability. Boasting a varied selection of German productions, the newly launched platform allows consumers to purchase content on a pay-per-view basis. So far, the films are available in either the original German-language version or the original version with German subtitles, but English subtitles are planned in the medium term. 

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Apart from presenting a host of internationally and nationally successful titles like Emily Atef’s 3 Days in Quiberon [+lire aussi :
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interview : Emily Atef
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Q&A : Maren Ade
fiche film] and Fatih Akin’s Goodbye Berlin [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], KinoHerz gives producers the opportunity to share films that have so far been hard to access or have even been completely unavailable on the digital market, thus exposing them to a broad audience. 

“KinoHerz allows the German Producers Association to address the strategic issues and challenges of digital distribution. Smart curating, targeted marketing and the proper use of user data are activities that we don’t just want to leave to the big players like Netflix and Amazon. In the medium term, we plan to present all of our members’ titles on KinoHerz,” said Gian-Piero Ringel, board member of the VDFP. 

The movies can be accessed on the website www.kinoherz.de, as well as via the web shops of the individual production companies. KinoHerz was developed by the VDFP together with Cologne-based distribution and aggregation company Rushlake Media, which will handle the platform’s operations. “All of the films available on KinoHerz represent the great national and international successes of independent producers,” stated Philipp Hoffmann, founder and managing director of Rushlake Media. The company also operates the Kino on Demand platform, which enables German cinemas to use their own websites to offer their films for on-demand viewing, even after the theatrical release has run its course.

The new service was first presented at the VDFP Spring Meeting, which took place in Leipzig from 29-30 March. During the same meeting, a collaboration was announced with London-based blockchain platform FilmChain, which specialises in collecting, allocating and analysing revenues for films. The platform, which organised the Blockchain in Motion workshop during the EFM’s Horizon (see the news), will now have Germany as its second base of operations. One of the VDFP members, Verena Gräfe-Höft, of Junafilm, is already the first to pilot her production of the Nina Hoss-led drama film Pelican Blood [+lire aussi :
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interview : Katrin Gebbe
fiche film], directed by Katrin Gebbe (see the news), on FilmChain. The medium-term goal of the partnership is for FilmChain to develop a standardised revenue distribution and reporting model that will ultimately be fine-tuned to suit the needs of the VDFP members. 

Regarding the collaboration, Maria Tanjala, FilmChain co-founder, stated: “We are beyond thrilled to officialise our long and fruitful collaboration with Germany and expand our business there. We were impressed with the appetite for innovation in Germany right from the start, and we’re excited to cater to the needs of filmmakers here with an automated, ground-breaking system.”

VDFP’s other brand-new partnership is with another EFM Horizon start-up (see the news), Barcelona-based FilmarketHub, which is the first online marketplace for films and series in development.