Jia Zhangke joins HKIFF, Joint Pictures for China VOD launch


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 20 May 2016




Chinese director Jia Zhangke has tied up with the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) and Taiwanese distributor Joint Pictures to bring his online video platform Jia Screen to market.



JiaScreenThe advertising supported platform will carry short films from around the world from new directors when it launches in mainline China in June.

“Short films are made with a high degree of passion and creativity, but that creativity is now disappearing in China as fans don’t have access. The idea of Jia Screen is to improve that access. And besides, short films work well on mobile devices and tablet computers,” said Jia during the platform’s launch at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jia Screen, which is currently on a shopping spree for titles in Cannes, will acquire regional rights to the films for one year on a flat-fee basis.

Access to the site’s content will be free via the messaging service WeChat (weixin) rather than with a proprietary app. Jia expects one million users by the end of 2016.

Each film shown on the video-on-demand (VOD) platform will be introduced over a three-day period, complete with director’s clips, behind the scenes footage and critical analysis.

Jia Screen also plans to hold an annual awards event to promote the year’s best short films, chosen by a jury.

“We get thousands of submissions each year for the festival and cannot select all of them for our competition, so working with Jia Screen is a logical move. We need to use digital platforms in order to reach younger people and for good films to reach wider audiences,” said Roger Garcia, executive director, HKIFF.