Cannes You Dig It? MUBI, MUBI, MUBI!

Sun, sea, sand and overpriced club sandwiches – welcome to Cannes folks, home of one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world and the perfect place to announce MUBI; a veritable who’s who of the best of independent, classic and foreign films and a brand new on-demand entertainment service that lets you kick back and soak up the sights and sounds of international cinema right from the comfort of your sofa on PlayStation 3.

Taking place at the plush Majestic Barriere located on the boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes the panel included SCEE President Andrew House, MUBI founder and CEO Efe Cakeral along with special guest and ‘Ancestor of French New Wave cinema’, Agnes Varda (on hilarious and flying form!) and Hengameh Panahi, Founder and President of Celluloid Dreams, an international production and distribution company at the heart of MUBI and its ability to bring the best of independent cinema your way via PS3.

Fielding questions from a room of film media from the likes of The Hollywood Reporter and Variety Magazine, the MUBI and SCEE partnership piqued a lot of interest from everyone who attended, simply because it’s a film service unlike any other out there that zings with festival pleasers and indie gong grabbers such as Broken Flowers, The Wrestler, The Host, Downfall, Audition, Metropolis, Naked Lunch, This Is England, Barton Fink, Let The Right One In, and Whithnail and I.

Essentially, MUBI is a film lover’s paradise that will allow you to host your very own film festivals from your living room via your PS3. Not only that, you’ll be able to meet up with other film fans, make recommendations, share your thoughts on what you’ve been watching, read director bios and watch trailers. Excited yet? You should be!

“Consider this: every major important film ever produced available instantly in your living room, everywhere around the world. This is a vision we all dreamt of for a long time and we are starting to make it reality from today,” Efe explained to me when I caught up with him after the press conference to talk MUBI, movies and the service as a platform for discussion.

So where exactly did the idea for MUBI come about? “Three years ago I was sitting in a café in Tokyo and I wanted to watch a movie on my laptop. I couldn’t find a single service that offered me a good selection of movies that I can watch. So I thought to myself, the consumer experience is shifting significantly online and nobody is doing a good job of showcasing these films to an audience like me. It was really to create an app that I wanted to use.” There you have it – MUBI’s humble coffee shop beginnings explained by the man himself.

And it’s this coffee shop culture that Efe believes will drive MUBI when it launches later in 2010, offering you a way to discover films in the easiest possible way. “It’s not just a VOD site. It’s a social platform, a destination for film where you go to have a meaningful conversation about films that you love with the people in your network and really discover the stuff that your friends are watching and talking about. In five years, when you hear MUBI, I want you to associate it with great cinema.”

As a diehard cinephile I’m genuinely excited at the prospect of having instant access to such an eclectic library of film titles and can’t wait for MUBI to launch. I’m already planning my opening night line-up and am really interested to hear what you all have to say, so sling a few messages my way on the board below and I’ll be popping in and out to answer them as best I can.

Oh, and before you ask, I didn’t see a single famous person on my travels. FAIL!

Remember folks, if it hasn’t been hailed a classic by the film community it’s not a MUBI movie.