“We’re an antidote to the algorithm,” says BFI Player director as platform goes international | News

Paul Lewis

After carving out a name for itself as a home for independent and classic cinema in the UK, BFI Player, the British Film Institute’s streaming platform, is now expanding internationally.  

In May, BFI Player launched in Finland, and last month it debuted in Sweden.

Next year it is likely to launch in Ireland, according to Paul Lewis, director of the BFI Player. “We aim to launch in one new territory each year.”

Lewis says English-speaking, culturally similar countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are among key territories also being considered.

India is also “really interesting” as a possible launch territory because of its market size; the country is the third biggest audience for the BFI’s digital platforms on YouTube and the web.

The BFI Player is no stranger to overseas expansion. Back in 2019, BFI Player Classics launched in the US. Lewis says that BFI Player Classics will eventually become BFI Player, bringing its branding into line with its UK and other international counterparts.

BFI Player is initially launching in the Nordic region via Amazon Prime Video Channels, the service that allows Amazon Prime members to subscribe to additional streaming channels within the Prime Video platform.

“By working with partners [like Amazon], it’s a lower risk for us,” says Lewis. “It gives us an opportunity to get greater reach and is a lower barrier to market.”

In time, BFI Player will be made available in those countries via app stores on TV and devices, and also on the BFI’s own site.

Next phase

This global push marks a significant new phase for BFI Player, which aims to offer a more curated, smaller catalogue than the US streaming giants. Its subscription offering includes around 500 titles, alongside 1,500 rental titles.

The Seed Of The Sacred Fig

Launched in 2013, its initial offer was largely focused on heritage and classic films, but it soon expanded to encompass contemporary independent cinema. Coming to subscribers this summer are high-profile festival winners such as Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig.

Recent indie hits on the platform include All We Imagine As Light, Red Rooms, Starve Acre, On Falling, My Favourite Cake and Memoir Of A Snail.

Lewis says the platform has a “threefold vision”: to be ubiquitous for customers and easily available for them to access; to be unique in the market; and be a home for British independent and world cinema.

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He describes BFI Player as a “companion service” to global platforms like Netflix or Prime Video. Its catalogue has plenty of films to get excited by and for users to explore, without overwhelming them, he says.

“We’re a bit of an antidote to the algorithm. We try to present, contextualise and add value to our materials.”

Upcoming innovations will see the BFI Player allow users to scan a QR code after a film which will give them access to relevant articles or Q&As related to the film. 

In recent years, Mubi has emerged as a significant international arthouse streaming platform. The difference, says Lewis, is that BFI Player’s focus is “primarily British independent alongside the very best from around the world”.

Diversifying audiences

BFI Player sits right at the heart of the BFI’s future strategy as set out in its Screen Culture 2033 plan. By 2033, the organisation aims to significantly expand its digital reach to improve access and to help diversify its audiences and income. The plan identified a ‘huge potential’ to grow BFI Player, targeting a 10-fold growth in its audience.

The international launches are part of this push. So too are efforts to improve its technical limitations in a bid to make it easier to find and use.

“It’s no secret we’ve had challenges with tech in the past. We’ve always had a great catalogue, but it has not always been easiest to watch on your device of choice,” says Lewis.

Over the past year and a half, the BFI has spent money, time and effort on improving the way the platform can be accessed. Lewis says it is now available on every major TV app, and on all third-party channels as well. Next year, the BFI is expected to announce more significant developments around the BFI Player.

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Behind the scenes

Although the BFI declines to share specific figures about the BFI Player’s income or subscribers, calling it commercially sensitive data, Lewis says one million views a month by the end of this year “would be a success for us.”

In its Screen Culture 2033 report, the BFI said that the platform produces a “modest net income that helps relieve financial pressure” on the organisation.

“Any money that we make goes back into the film industry,” adds Lewis.

The BFI Player has a core full-time team of 15, while around 30 BFI staff in total contribute to the platform. The BFI Player’s head of programming James Rocarols, for example, sits within the wider BFI programming team. “We’re a service that has been incubated within the BFI, and it has allowed us to get to the scale we have when others have faltered,” says Lewis.

So when the BFI’s programming team acquires films for distribution, it very much has BFI Player in mind as well as theatrical. The platform “is a great opportunity to find an audience beyond what theatrical is able to offer,” says Lewis. 

The BFI Player’s international expansion naturally means that the programming team is now buying rights for additional territories such as Sweden and Finland, as well as the US.

The films on offer will differ in each territory where the BFI Player operates, but there is significant overlap. “It’s important that the core of BFI Player remains throughout,” says Lewis. For the Nordic territories, the platform has acquired some titles that it doesn’t have existing UK rights for but that fit the BFI Player audience; these include Sexy Beast, Eraserhead and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy.

To what extent does a publicly funded BFI compete for films with other distributors? “It’s an open market, so we are absolutely competing at an open level for films that often get picked up by other providers,” explains Lewis. “We have to operate openly from a commercial point of view in the market as everyone else does.”

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