There’s a new town in town

Since 19th February, lucky Amsterdam has Cineville.nl, a collector for all films on exhibition in the city’s 13 film theatres. The site contains synopses, trailers, reviews, and film news. But most importantly, it provides an overview of what’s on, where, and when – something we’ve all been sorely craving for.

Even better, €17,50 a month gets you into 550 exhibitions per week and 400 specials per year, in any of the cinemas, whenever you feel like it. So do away with the dissatisfaction of your monthly television subscription fee, and get something of real value.

The Cineville pass is already on sale online (click here), as well as at Cinecenter, Kriterion, and Rialto. But if you join the crew at Vive La Ville! – Cineville’s launch party on 27th February in Studio/K, you can have one made on the spot, in between your dance floor braveness.

(screen shot Cineville by de Balie, by me on Flickr)

But for industry professionals fearing empty cinemas, Upload Cinema comes to the rescue (albeit not in a way they’d envision). For its feature length programs in the Uitkijk cinema in Amsterdam, Upload Cinema relies solely on the web’s immense and freely accessible catalogue – not on Hollywood distributors.

And in true crowdsourcing fashion, the organisation asks potential visitors to submit films they think deserve a place on the big screen. This month’s edition (‘Yes, also we are list-addicts’) comprised the best web videos of 2008. ‘No theme, no rules: just the most outstanding, creative and crazy web videos produced.’

From over 200 entries, Upload Cinema selected 36. All of them were a feast for eyes and ears, with this Star Wars a cappella tribute baffling and cracking me up the most:

And one of my favourites, Bert & Ernie’s Gangsta Rap (which I ripped and used for one of my own), also passed the screen:

But Upload Cinema is no cheap excuse for a Hollywood no-brainer. Taking a contextual approach, ViralBlog’s http://www.viralblog.com  Paul van Veenendaal (replaced by his boss due to sickness) was invited to talk about viral marketing, and about the marketing industry’s slow-but-sure embrace of web-users as partners.

But will their productions snatch Youtube’s prime-space away from the people it was intended for – you and me? That’s not so clear-cut: viral’s production value – or rather: ‘unproduction’ value – is one of its main assets. Knowing that the brilliance you’re watching was created (and/or mashed-up) by some 15 year-old, not by a team of highly paid creative industry professionals, only adds to your viewing experience.

And marketers trying to make participatory culture work for them may only end up making their clients look bad – as the good people at Chevrolet found out the hard way:

(They’ve built a hybrid now)

But crowdsourced, unproduction value is not the end-all, for now at least. For the web boasts some prime examples of professional creativity, as demonstrated by Zune’s spec ad (less suited for broadcast tv, because not for the faint-of-stomach):

As of writing, Upload Cinema hasn’t archived this month’s selection yet, but it’ll probably be up there soon (without the Chevvy ad – I got that one from Michael Wesh’s excellent ‘Anthropological Introduction to Youtube’). Next session: Monday 2nd February.

Photo Live At Upload Cinema in Amsterdam by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.