New Film Streaming Platform OVID.tv Launches March 22

Tomorrow marks the official launch date of OVID.tv, an unprecedented collaborative effort amongst eight of the most noteworthy independent film distributors in the U.S., who have come together to support the innovative new subscription video-on-demand service, OVID.tv.

In the face of the paradox of booming SVOD companies (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu) spending millions at festivals like Sundance, yet diminishing space and falling revenues for most independent documentaries and feature films, it has become apparent that despite the odds and with little capital, those smaller companies long dedicated to championing alternatives would need to step forward and claim a new, dedicated space for themselves, their films, and their audiences.

Beginning Friday, March 22, 2019 OVID.tv will offer more than 350 quality arthouse, documentary, and social issue films from its founding content partners Bullfrog Films, The dGenerate Films Collection, Distrib Films US, First Run Features, Grasshopper Film, Icarus Films, KimStim, and Women Make Movies.

Presenting works by important filmmakers such as Chantal Akerman, John Akomfrah, Patricio Guzman, Heddy Honigmann, Anne Makepeace, Chris Marker, Ross McElwee, Bill Morrison, Jean Rouch, Wang Bing, and Travis Wilkerson, and fiction feature films such as, the mystery I, Anna, starring Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne; the Japanese horror film Creepy by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; the Tiger Award Winner at last year's Rotterdam Film Festival, The Widowed Witch, by Cai Chengjie; and Shoehei Imamura's remarkable (and all too little seen) classic from 1967, A Man Vanishes.

Plus, new films will be added approximately every two weeks (14 fiction feature films and one 10-part documentary series are scheduled for release between now and April 5. More details on these titles is available soon).

Director of OVID.tv Jonathan Miller says, "In the face of ever consolidating forces (Disney & 20th Century Fox, ATT & Time Warner - goodbye Filmstruck!) the goal of OVID.tv is to preserve opportunities for independent films and alternative voices and visions in the culture. Not only for those compelled to make these films, but even more importantly, for audiences who value them and will, we hope, search them out by supporting and subscribing to OVID.tv."

New subscribers enjoy a free 7-day trial period, after which the cost is only $6.99 a month, or $69.99 annually.Currently the service is only available in the U.S., but access in Canada will be added later this year.