22/05/2012 - The online platform MUBI and Nordisk Film & TV Fond announced yesterday their unique Scandi Sensations collaboration to bring a slate of Scandinavian titles to worldwide audiences

Yesterday morning, Palme d’or candidate Thomas Vinterberg (photo) attended the press meeting to support the launch of ‘Scandi Sensations’, a new initiative between online platform MUBI and Nordisk Film & TV Fond to bring Scandinavian films into millions of homes around the world.

So far, MUBI carries around 1,000 films including Scandinavian films such as Vinterberg’s The Celebration (available via MUBI in 70 countries already), Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: John Nordling
interview: Tomas Alfredson
film profile] and Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. Through the agreement with Nordisk Film & TV Fond – which funds and promotes Nordic films in the Nordic region - another 20 Nordic titles will be available from this summer.

“We want to create more exposure for Nordic films as quite a lot of people find it difficult to access them,” said young entrepreneur and MUBI CEO Efe Cakarel (pictured right). “We are fortunate to have established a relationship with the right owners, such as sales agent TrustNordisk and local distributors like Scanbox Entertainment Norge AS and Arthaus in Scandinavia or BIM Distribuzione in Italy, Bac Films in France and Artificial Eye in the UK. We will spend the next two to three months launching the platform.”

Norway will be the first territory in which ‘Scandinavian Sensations’ will be available for a €1.7 monthly fee. Denmark and Sweden will follow, then Finland and Iceland. Cakarel has partnered Scandinavian broadband operator Telenor and MUBI will become their exclusive subscription service in the fall.

Commenting on the initiative, Hanne Palmquist (pictured left), head of Nordisk Film & TV Fond said: “I am extremely pleased that Nordisk Film & TV Fond and MUBI will be working together on Scandi Sensations. We want as many people as possible throughout the world to be able to see some of the very best Nordic titles and MUBI is the perfect partner for that mission. We hope to do more initiatives like this in the future.”

Earlier this week in Cannes, the European VOD platform partner to Celluloid Dreams and Martin Scorsese’s The Criterion Collection screened the 20 minute short film Ashes by Palme d’or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which was shot on a new camera designed with analogue specialist Lomography.