Thursday, December 3, 2009

Withoutabox Targets Film Festivals

Los Angeles-based Withoutabox, which is now a part of Amazon.com's IMDB.com division, said this week that it has launched a new service targeted at film festivals. According to the site, it has created a new "Secure Online Screeners" offering which allows filmmakers to submit both short and feature-length films to the site for hosting, and also can be used by film festivals to manage incoming submissions. The site is looking to supplant the existing process of mailing DVDs to film festivals for screening. Withoutabox said that the new service strictly limits access to filmmakers and the festivals that the filmmaker submits their film to, and include specific URLs and other features to limit access to only authorized users. The site said that submitting the first film is free for a filmmaker, with every additional submission only $2.95. The company said the new service will be offered for free to film festivals already using its Withoutabox International Film Festival Submissions System.