The Auteurs (film website)
Encyclopedia
MUBI is an online film website that integrates elements of social networking with video streaming. It has been described as an "online cinematheque
." The site allows users to watch feature films, usually for a fee, and connect with others with similar tastes in movies.
(whose website MUBI designed and manage), the French film distributor Celluloid Dreams
and Costa Films, a company specializing in the distribution of films from Latin America
. Due to this arrangement, the site is able to stream films that are not currently available on DVD, such as Claire Denis
's Vers Mathilde; the selection of viewable films depends on the country the site is being accessed from.
In May 2009, The Auteurs formed an alliance with Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation
to promote and distribute a number of WCF restored titles, beginning with Touki Bouki
(dir. Djibril Diop Mambety, 1973), The Housemaid
(dir. Ki-young Kim, 1960), Dry Summer (dir. Metin Erksan and David E. Durston, 1964), and Trances
(dir. Ahmed El Maanouni, 1981). Films that the WCF restores have a premiere at Cannes Film Festival before beginning a tour of other festivals and museum exhibitions. During the museum tour of the restored 35mm prints, the films are made available digitally through The Auteurs.
application, The Movie Theater.
The site's interface is specifically geared towards simplicity, and it is often noted for its aesthetic design and forward-thinking uses of media.
In addition to providing video and rudimentary social networking tools (such as user profiles and a forum).
and edited by Daniel Kasman. The Notebook is updated daily on weekdays and features several regular columns as well as movie reviews
and coverage of major film festival
s. Regular contributors include Kasman, Glenn Kenny
, David Cairns, Adrian Curry, David Phelps, Neil Young, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and Ryland Walker Knight. Many of the writers also contribute to other publications or blog
s.
for the website of the online video rental service GreenCine
, where it continues in a different format under the editorship of Aaron Hillis, and for seven months at the website of IFC
. Hudson provides a daily roundup of important links relating to film and film criticism online. He also provides content for The Auteurs' Twitter
feed.
In May 2010, it was announced that an integrated application for streaming on the PlayStation 3
would be made available in Europe.
It was released on PSN on Wednesday 3rd November
, a Turkish
-born entrepreneur, and is based in Palo Alto, California
. In May 2010 the site name was changed to MUBI.
Cinematheque
A cinémathèque is a French word used to refer to a film archive with small cinemas that screens particularly classic and art-house films.- History :...
." The site allows users to watch feature films, usually for a fee, and connect with others with similar tastes in movies.
Partnerships
MUBI is partnered with The Criterion CollectionThe Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
(whose website MUBI designed and manage), the French film distributor Celluloid Dreams
Celluloid Dreams
Celluloid Dreams is a French film production and distribution company which is also an international sales company as well. They also run a video on-demand platform, The Auteurs in conjunction with The Criterion Collection...
and Costa Films, a company specializing in the distribution of films from Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Due to this arrangement, the site is able to stream films that are not currently available on DVD, such as Claire Denis
Claire Denis
Claire Denis is a French film director and Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Early life:...
's Vers Mathilde; the selection of viewable films depends on the country the site is being accessed from.
In May 2009, The Auteurs formed an alliance with Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation
World Cinema Foundation
The World Cinema Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and restoration of neglected world cinema.It was founded in 2007, inspired by the work of The Film Foundation in the United States, a similar venture which Martin Scorsese founded with George Lucas, Stanley...
to promote and distribute a number of WCF restored titles, beginning with Touki Bouki
Touki Bouki
Touki Bouki is a 1973 Senegalese drama film, directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. It was shown at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival....
(dir. Djibril Diop Mambety, 1973), The Housemaid
The Housemaid
The Housemaid is a 1960 black-and-white Korean film. It was directed by Kim Ki-young and starred Lee Eun-shim, Ju Jeung-nyeo and Kim Jin Kyu. It has been described in Koreanfilm.org as a "consensus pick as one of the top three Korean films of all time". This was the first film in Kim's Housemaid...
(dir. Ki-young Kim, 1960), Dry Summer (dir. Metin Erksan and David E. Durston, 1964), and Trances
Trances
Trances is the second album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. Like his first album Sunyata, this album consists of slow, textural drone music....
(dir. Ahmed El Maanouni, 1981). Films that the WCF restores have a premiere at Cannes Film Festival before beginning a tour of other festivals and museum exhibitions. During the museum tour of the restored 35mm prints, the films are made available digitally through The Auteurs.
Technology
For the streaming of films, The Auteurs sends compressed files to the browser's Flash plug-in. The Auteurs' engineers create compression settings for each film via a digital chain that includes mplayer, x264, ffmpeg, and mp4box. Audio is augmented with 5.1 Dolby surround sound.User experience
As of November 2010 MUBI has over 700,000 members, as well as 30,000 users for its FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
application, The Movie Theater.
The site's interface is specifically geared towards simplicity, and it is often noted for its aesthetic design and forward-thinking uses of media.
In addition to providing video and rudimentary social networking tools (such as user profiles and a forum).
The Auteurs' Notebook
The Auteurs also hosts an online magazine called The Auteurs' Notebook, which is based in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and edited by Daniel Kasman. The Notebook is updated daily on weekdays and features several regular columns as well as movie reviews
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
and coverage of major film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s. Regular contributors include Kasman, Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny is an American film critic. Kenny served as a critic and editor at the film magazine Premiere from 1996 until it ceased publication in 2007...
, David Cairns, Adrian Curry, David Phelps, Neil Young, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and Ryland Walker Knight. Many of the writers also contribute to other publications or blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s.
The Auteurs Daily
On July 30, 2009, The Auteurs began to host The Daily (now The Auteurs Daily), a popular film blog run by David Hudson. Hudson had previously run the blog for six years as GreenCine DailyGreenCine Daily
GreenCine Daily is a film and film criticism news site operated by the online video rental service GreenCine.The site was originally edited by David Hudson, who developed a format that curated links to articles, reviews, interviews and podcasts. Over the course of Hudson's tenure, the site became...
for the website of the online video rental service GreenCine
GreenCine
GreenCine is an online DVD rental service similar to Netflix. Based in San Francisco, California, with its distribution center in the Los Angeles area , it has a collection of over 30,000 titles as well as over 9,000 video on demand titles...
, where it continues in a different format under the editorship of Aaron Hillis, and for seven months at the website of IFC
Independent Film Channel
The Independent Film Channel is an American cable TV network that airs independent film and related programming. IFC programming includes commercially interrupted feature-length films, original documentaries, shorts, animated series, original series, acquired series, and content exclusively for...
. Hudson provides a daily roundup of important links relating to film and film criticism online. He also provides content for The Auteurs' Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
feed.
The Auteurs' Garage
In January of 2010 The Auteurs introduced what was dubbed the "Garage". Developed by Tobias Morgan, The Auteurs' Garage was designed to be an online film production studio and workshop geared towards finding independent filmmakers with engaging work and offering them a platform through which the Garage would curate their work via the Auteurs' website and therein, provide the filmmaker with a worldwide audience. Real-world, on the ground screenings, festivals, events and production resources are also part of the Garage model.Development
In February 2009, The Auteurs hired Fallon UK as their creative agency and is working with them on various advertising models to monetize movies on the internet.In May 2010, it was announced that an integrated application for streaming on the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
would be made available in Europe.
It was released on PSN on Wednesday 3rd November
Subsidiary information
The site was founded by Efe CakarelEfe Cakarel
Efe Cakarel is a Turkish entrepreneur and founder and CEO of MUBI. He earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to founding MUBI, he spent a number of years at Goldman Sachs in investment banking.He...
, a Turkish
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
-born entrepreneur, and is based in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
. In May 2010 the site name was changed to MUBI.