Indie Screenings Launch Bonanza

Like Hannibal from the A-Team always said, 'I love it when a plan comes together'. Team Stupid is no different to the A-Team, so it is with great satisfaction that we announce, at long last, the launch of our latest world-first: the Indie Screenings film distribution model. 

The scheme is fiendishly simple. Anyone can buy a license to screen selected independent films - before they're released for sale on DVD - whenever and wherever they like, charge for the tickets, and keep the profits: or bish bash bosh, as we say here in London. 

Obviously we're launching the scheme with Stupid, but the cunning software and dedicated website will be opened out soon to include other choice independent films as well. The new software, developed by our friends at Torchbox, calculates a license fee according to a sliding scale, depending on who/where/when the user wants to screen - so a local Women's Institute group might pay £60 to screen in their church hall, whereas ExxonMobil would pay £10,000 to screen to 5000 staff at a conference (we're still waiting for Exxon to get in touch). Speakers can also be booked through the system.

The website went live on May 1st, and before we'd even had time to mention it to anyone, we'd had 57 UK bookings, from across all sectors of society, including:

• 12 campaign groups
• 11 holy faith groups
• 9 sporty sports groups
• 7 trade unions
• 6 schools-a-schooling
• 5 businesses
• 4 individuals
• 2 student unions
• 1 local council
• and a partridge in a pear tree

Actually, the partridge had to cancel, but we're still dead impressed with the intense level of interest - and with the fact that it really really looks like this is going to be a viable model for independent film distribution. It's pulled in over £5G already. Kerching!

Team Stupid's Glorious Leader, Director Franny Armstrong, whose vision has given birth to this monster, summed it up perhaps most succinctly, saying,

“Indie Screenings is a win-win-win-win-win.” 

Spelling it out further for the hard-of-thinking, Franny explains,

“Millions more people see the film, the license fee goes direct to the filmmakers rather than the middle men, it encourages collective watching as opposed to sitting at home with a lonely DVD, we’re reaching sections of our communities who wouldn’t go to the cinema and it allows anyone to fundraise for their campaigns on the back of our films. Viva la revolution.”

Indeed - or, you get me, as we say here in London.

It is in this revolutionary spirit that we're kicking off the proceedings with a live webcast spectacular in true Stupid style, from the Royal Society of Arts in London on May 22nd. Champion of the British environmental movement George Monbiot and Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the MET Office, join Franny for a heated debate about how to stop things getting any hotter. The icing on the cake will be a Vlog on 'The Art of the Possible' from the Vice-President of the Maldives, Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan.

(There are limited seats in the audience available for free for those who get there quick enough - visit www.thersa.org.uk/events or email lectures@rsa.org.uk.)

To find our more about the launch event see the webcast page, or download the press release and the e-flyer at the bottom of this page.

But most importantly, to get in on the action, visit www.indiescreenings.net, and get on with booking your place in film history.

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