Withoutabox on expansion track

The Internet-based festival submission system Withoutabox, founded in 2000, is in the process of expanding. During the past year, the site has introduced one change after another in terms of both geographic scope and the range of online services.

While some 120 festivals and 13,000 filmmakers – almost exclusively from the USA – had already started using Withoutabox two years after its founding, today the site boasts over 100,000 filmmakers and nearly 3,000 film festivals in 200 countries (see also our 2002 report).

The film registration system is still Withoutabox’s core business. It allows filmmakers, after one-time entry of their data, to submit their films to all participating film festivals practically at the touch of a button. The festivals, on the other hand, benefit from easier administration of submission data. Particularly in the USA and other countries where registration fees are common, the work thus saved can be passed on to the filmmakers in the form of discounted processing fees, which has surely played a major role in the platform’s success in these countries.

In the five years since its founding, the registration system has continually been refined and perfected. These enhancements include cash-free transfer of registration fees and the option of ordering not only a press kit but also trailers online. But beyond this, nothing much has changed on the site. Even the former plans for direct digital distribution of films via the Withoutabox platform have been shelved for the time being by the cautious company founders.

Withoutabox’s success is based above all on the services it provides in the independent sector, helping film authors to advertise and market their own films online. The recent emergence of so-called “social networks” on the Internet, which offer filmmakers similar, inexpensive distribution and networking opportunities, at first threatened Withoutabox with some serious competition. The company has since responded, however, by launching an additional platform, “Audience by Withoutabox”, which lets filmmakers contact fans, friends and viewers directly in the form of a blog.

A real expansion of the core business and substantial enlargement of the enterprise did not take place until July 2006, with the purchase of Film Finders. Also based in California and founded almost concurrently, Film Finders offers rights management services, now a business unit of Withoutabox. The founders of Film Finders, Sydney Levine and Peter Belsito, have become members of the Withoutabox management, alongside David Straus (CEO) and Joe Neulight (President).

Apart from long years of experience and key business connections in the film trade, Film Finders also brings with it its own online rights platform with data on international film markets, film dealers and more than 90,000 rights holders. Thanks to a further strategic partnership with software developer RightsLine, it will be possible in future to catalogue, research and trade in film rights and films internationally via a single online portal.

At the same time, Withoutabox is continuing its efforts to gear its film submission system to continents outside of North America as well. To this end, festival liaison offices were opened, also in July 2006, in Europe (UK), Asia and South America.

Finally, at the International Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas in December 2006, Withoutabox announced a transatlantic alliance with FilmFestivals.com. Based in France, this Internet platform is the world’s biggest provider of information on film festivals, heretofore in the form of text only. In the recent past, FilmFestivals.com, like Withoutabox, has been trying to expand its activities by adding new Internet applications, including offerings in the area of social networking and IPTV for festival reporting. These additions have however attracted little attention as yet from the target ‘community’. In the new alliance, all information resources on festivals, film submissions and film marketing are to be brought together and developed further, while Withoutabox at the same time concentrates on extending its international presence. The partners will announce soon which joint services will be offered and what concrete shape these will take.

Reinhard W. Wolf