Russia readies first online premiere

Andrei Marmontov’s The Gold is a historical drama that will first be available on the CinemaWell.com platform next Monday [Aug 26] from 6pm, Moscow time.

It is intended to act as a promotional tool for the film‘s theatrical opening.

Not to be confused with Thomas Arslan’s Gold (which opens in Russia on October 10), the Sverdlovsk Film Studios production is based on the eponymous novel by 19th Russian writer Dmitri Mamin-Sibiriak whose work portrayed life in the Ural Mountains.

A family of businessmen are given two months to settle the gambling debts of their missing brother – a daunting task until help suddenly appears in the form of a real life gold mine. But then their problems really start.

It stars Sergei Bezrukov, Andrei Merzlikin, and Anna German.

The online premiere takes place one day before the traditional Day of Russian Cinema on Aug 27.

Austria adopts day-and-date release

In Austria, VoD platform flimmit and theatrical distributor Filmladen have joined forces for the day-and-date release of Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek’s comedy Magnifica Presenza tomorrow (Aug 23).

The cooperation is part of the MEDIA-backed The Tide Experiment which was launched earlier this year with the near-simultaneous online and theatrical release of the documentary Viramundo.

In France, Ozpetek’s film was launched on Orange’s VoD service on July 10 and in cinemas by DistribFilms on July 31, while the UK’s Peccadillo Pictures is planning a day&date release in the UK and Ireland on October 4, with blinkbox, Curzon and distrify as VoD partners.

Emmerich, Kreuzpaintner behind first German Twitter trailer premiere

Friday will also see the trailer portal flimmer.de opening a new chapter in film marketing with the launching of Germany’s first trailer premiere on Twitter – for Steven Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra – 72 hours before the official theatrical trailer goes online.

Visitors to the trailer’s Twitter account will also be able to participate in a competition to win tickets to exclusive previews for the film ahead of its release by DCM on October 3.

Flimmer.de was founded a year ago by director Marco Kreuzpaintner and producer Christian Zimmer and numbers Hollywood-based Roland Emmerich as one of its shareholders.

Ironically, the German premieres of Behind The Candelabra – with Michael Douglas appearing in person on stage at the Admiralspalast after the screening – and Emmerich’s latest extravaganza White House Down are being held in Berlin on the same evening on September 2.

Loach doc first in Speed Bunch experiment

Veteran UK director Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ‘45 will be first title of the MEDIA-backed initiative Speed Bunch to be released simultaneously in five European territories.

The film, which had its world premiere in the Berlinale Special sidebar at Berlin in February, will be released simultaneously in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux as a VOD premiere from September 13.

And in Italy, Speed Bunch’s partner BIM Distribuzione will also open the film in cinemas a day earlier on September 12.

Last autumn, the distributors Wild Bunch, ARP and Artificial Eye were awarded almost €2m by the European Commission (EC) to develop simultaneous multi-platform and -territory releases as part of its Preparatory Action for “Circulation of European Films in the Digital Era.“

While Wild Bunch and ARP have established the Speed Bunch and The Tide Experiment initiatives, Artificial Eye joined forces with such companies as The Match Factory, Rezo Films and Gutek Film to create the EDAD project.