Indie film and new media pioneer announces new multi-platform monthly feature
March 22, 2000 – IFC today announced Doug Block’s Home Page, the first film ever to be released simultaneously in theaters and on the Internet, as the newest addition to DV Theater (Digital Video Theater), IFC’s new monthly multi-platform programming strand. In July, Home Page will premier on IFC and begin airing online at www.ifctv.com and on IFC Broadband. Internet users will see a serialized version of the film, while IFC Broadband will air Home Page in its entirety.
The latest phase of IFC’s ongoing commitment to providing viewers with the most cutting-edge programming available, DV Theater takes the movie-watching experience above and beyond existing parameters with an innovative, multi-platform approach that reaches on-air, Broadband and Internet audiences simultaneously.
“Using cutting-edge technology is useless without providing the engaging and entertaining content that independent film fans demand,” said Joe Cantwell, executive vice president of new media for Bravo Networks. “Offering fans exclusive access to Home Page across all of our platforms is an important step in our evolution to indie film’s digital media leader.”
In addition to its on-air, online and Broadband release, Home Page is scheduled to also be released for home video viewing via video-on-demand (VOD), VHS and DVD, as well as to user’s online via digital download.
A coming of age story set in the exuberant early days of the web, Home Page was a hit at the 1999 Sundance and Rotterdam film festivals. It became a landmark in November when it began streaming in its entirety on the Internet, a week before its critically acclaimed theatrical opening. The film was called “groundbreaking” by Roger Ebert (who named it one of his favorite documentaries of 1999) and a “fascinating, provocative and witty personal exploration” by Entertainment Weekly.
Home Page focuses on cyber celeb Justin Hall, who gained notoriety in early 1996 for his obsessively personal and sexually graphic daily online diary, Justin’s Links from the Underground (www.links.net). Block’s camera follows Hall’s search for connection and community – both on and offline – from college, to a zany cross-country tour of web evangelism and to San Francisco, the nerve center of the digital revolution. There the film branches out to include the stories of other pioneering web publishers who cross Hall’s path, including his mentor, renowned author Howard Rheingold, Carl Steadman, the co-founder of Suck, Julie Peterson, an editor at HotWired, and ultimately filmmaker Block himself, who finds the lure of the web impossible to resist (www.d-word.com).
“The fact that all of the major characters in Home Page continue to write about their lives online gives the film an inherent interactivity that’s a natural for Broadband,” said Block. “IFC has always been a great TV showcase for indie films and I’m sure they will be equally successful with Broadband. I’m really proud and excited that Home Page has found a home there.”
About Bravo Networks New Media
Founded in 1996, Bravo Networks New Media is dedicated to extending the company’s brands across new technology platforms including expanding broadband content, developing and implementing an expanded Web strategy, pursuing video-on-demand and other interactive opportunities, and exploring strategic alliances and acquisitions in domestic and Latin American markets.
Bravo Networks New Media’s interactive unit includes Bravo Online (www.bravotv.com), dedicated to film and arts content, World Cinema Online (www.worldcinematv.com), Bravo Networks New Media’s comprehensive online resource for foreign film fans, and the Independent Film Channel Online and IFC Broadband (www.ifctv.com ), helping to further the audience for independent film through high-speed and traditional Internet services.
About IFC
The Independent Film Channel (IFC), managed and operated by Bravo Networks, is the first channel dedicated to independent film presented 24 hours a day, uncut and commercial-free. IFC, reaching more than 30 million homes and with 14 million subscribers on a full-time basis, is the most widely distributed channel dedicated to independent film on television.
As the leader in online independent film activity since 1996, IFC New Media is focusing considerable efforts on expanding the audience for indie work by including the use of new digital media and producing a series of Internet and Broadband events.
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