Scottish VOD specialist Distrify has signed an agreement with Toronto-based Syndicado Inc. to power its new documentary sales site from the beginning of 2012.
Under the partnership, Distrify’s new video player will deliver Syndicado’s documentary library and new releases on a range of devices and platforms. Syndicado is a digital distribution company focused on feature-length documentaries and factual TV programming for launch on digital platforms such as the internet, TV VOD and mobile.
The company partners with traditional distributors, producers and sale agents to manage all aspects of digital distribution, strategy and marketing, on the leading digital service providers in North America and Europe such as Viewster, Amazon and Netflix.
The two companies came together initially at the Sheffield Documentary Festival and concluded their partnership at IDFA in Amsterdam this November. Distrify's technology allows anyone to become a film curator on the web, turning social recommendations and reviews into a sales platform.
In order to make a large library of documentaries discoverable on the web, Syndicado will use Distrify's specialised publishing tools to create a destination site for its films that is automatically optimised to each visitor's tastes.
“We are delighted to form a partnership with Syndicado and are very impressed by the depth and quality of content being made available”, says Andy Green, Chief Operating Officer at Distrify Limited. “With our deep experience and insight into evolving digital models, we were excited to be selected as the company to help Syndicado launch their new direct to consumer service, focused at marketing and selling documentaries to fans around the world.”
“After reviewing several media players and e-commerce solutions we were impressed with Distrify’s flexible tool-set to support our new marketing platform for documentaries”, says Greg Rubidge, president of Syndicado.
The deal comes hot on the heels of a partnership between Distrify and respected documentary film sales agency Films Transit, which was announced at the beginning of Docs for Sale. Under that accord, Montreal and New York-based Films Transit is due to put all its films up on a dedicated site, starting January 2012.
First titles to go online under the Films Transit deal will include Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb; Ron Mann’s Twist; Heddy Honigmann’s
Forever and Meema Spadola’s Breasts; Christian Frei’s Oscar-nominated
War Photographer, IDFA winners such a Rick Minnich’s
Forgetting Dad and Luc Cote and Patricio Henriquez’s
You Don’t Like the Truth and Emmy Winners such as Jeff Stimmel’s The Art of Failure.
By Melanie Goodfellow