NEON's Oscar Shortlisted Documentaries And International Films Will Be Made Available For Letterboxd Users
Oscar season is always a mixed bag for movie lovers. For many, it's a chance to heap praise and awards on the best films of last year, but for most others, it's an exclusive horse race for which they've only seen a few of the contenders. Arthouse movies are just that — films for the arthouse, frequently only seen at film festivals or during limited theatrical releases, and often not available for the wider audience to see until long after the Oscar ceremony is over. But NEON is making all six of their Oscar shortlisted titles available to anyone with an account on the movie review website Letterboxd.
NEON is partnering up with Letterboxd to make available all six of its Oscar shortlisted international and documentary films to users of the movie review social network — for a limited time. At the discounted bundle price of $19.99, Letterboxd users can watch all six films at watch.neonrated.com starting Monday, March 8, 2021. The deal will last until March 14.
The six films will include Gunda directed by Victor Kossakovsky and executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix; Gianfranco Rosi's Notturno; The Painter and the Thief directed by Benjamin Ree; Andrei Konchalovsky's Dear Comrades!, Russia's Oscar submission; Night of the Kings, Philippe Lacôte's Ivory Coast Oscar contender; and Jasmila Žbani?'s Quo Vadis, Aida?, the Bosnia and Herzegovina submission.
"Letterboxd loves connecting our audience of film fans with the works of great filmmakers, said Letterboxd's David Larkin in a statement. "Partnering with NEON to offer this selection of six sensational films is an exciting opportunity for our community to be part of the awards-season conversation."
This will mark the first time Letterboxd will be offering new films that have not streamed on any other platforms directly to its members, which is a big step up for a website that is mostly known for its cinephile community and its viral microblog reviews. Does this also signal Letterboxd as a new platform for streaming movies? Perhaps, though it's still too early to tell.
Meanwhile, this is a smart deal on NEON's part, the company having risen in profile recently as one of the foremost arthouse movie distributors after their Best Picture win last year for Bong Joon-ho's Parasite. Letterboxd is where the young, hip cinephiles have been hanging out as of late, a demographic that NEON is surely targeting. The distributor recently acquired Céline Sciamma's Petite Maman, reuniting with French filmmaker followign their collaboration on the acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire. They've also been developing several projects including Pablo Larraín's Spencer starring Kristen Stewart, Ben Wheatley's Sundance hit In The Earth, and the narrative remake of Oscar contender (and /Film favorite) The Painter and the Thief.