Four years have passed since you filed for bankruptcy with Triangelfilm and Astorias Cinemas. What convinced you to make a comeback?
What I learnt was that it's better to focus on what you're best at and not to be too naïve. It takes a lot of energy and time to run a cinema chain, and the difference between success and failure is very small. You also need a lot of financial back up to hold out, more than we had. I also learned a lot personally, to value life in a different way. So I decided to step aside from the film business for a while and do other things. I slowly came back as Senior Adviser/consultant for the production company St Paul Film, while teaching at the same time at Dramatiska Institutet and working with funded project in Vietnam.
Then three years ago the businessman and film buff Bengt Vernberg approached me and asked if I would come back to film distribution. I love film rights acquisition, but for me, it was out of the question to do a Triangelfilm 2. So we spoke about a different way of handling distribution. We developed the idea of a distribution company that would combine traditional cinema releases with VoD and web community service. Today, TriArt Film is financed 45% by the cinema chain Folkets Hus och Parker and 30% by the animation production outfit Forestlight Studios. I control the remaining 25% with Vernberg and former Sonet Film executive Staffan Wallhem.
Could you detail your vision and editorial strategy for Tri Art Film?
We will release around 18 titles per year (15 foreign and 3 Swedish), with a focus on auteurs, new talents (in particular women directors), and another 15-20 film classics directly to DVD and VoD. The first films to be released include Norwegian Wood by Tran Anh Hung, Drei by Tom Tykwer, Cirkus Columbia by Danis Tanovic, and Attenberg by first time Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari. Another aspect of our strategy will be to buy for example the latest Bela Tárr, Atom Egoyan or Claude Chabrol and package them with two or three older titles by the same director. The latest film would be platformed in the cinemas and after a month, the auteur collection would be released on DVD and VoD. The packaging concept will be applied to countries. For instance we will regroup ten Turkish films with English subtitles and package them to reach the Turkish community in Sweden via VoD.
When will you launch your VoD platform and online community and information service?
In late March or early April. Unlike most existing VoD services that privilege quantity over quality and give little or no information on films, our platform will be very selective. We will build our auteur-driven catalogue based on our own acquisitions and other arthouse titles from other distributors. Our website triart.se will have a webmaster and an editorial team. It will be similar to Screendaily, with interviews, business information, film reviews. There will also be a forum for discussions and debates. It will be available in Swedish and hopefully, later on, in English as well. Our plan is also to expand across the Nordic region.
Do you think film distribution today is more exciting than three decades ago?
We do live in exciting times. Film distribution is more democratic with the Internet and it's easier to reach people. Cinema-going will always remain a big city leisure activity, but now people in smaller towns can also discover films on digital screens or in their homes via VoD, TV or DVD. They can choose how to view the films.
Do you think windows should be reduced?
Exhibitors and many distributors are still holding on to the traditional pattern of cinema, DVD and television, but within the next two years, simultaneous releases will be a reality. The Americans have already cut down the windows between cinemas and DVD to four weeks on many premiere titles. Sooner rather than later, when US companies will decide to open up the market and break release windows, VoD and exclusive film DVD packages will be the major source of income for distributors and rights holders.
We want to launch our service today, because when this will happen for real, hopefully, we will already be an established brand in the Nordic market.
On a creative standpoint, do you feel that digital technology has also been positive to film language?
I've never seen so many young filmmakers making films in their own basement with a few million Kronas. Talents are out there, making films within and outside the system and their skills are improving. Since I also work as a producer at St Paul Film, I try to find and support these talents in the production process. In the end it's up to us distributors to give them a chance.