LOVEFiLM, Europe’s leading film & TV, digital and DVD rental subscription service with over 67,000 titles has signed an exclusive rental window with Arrow Films for the home entertainment release of Departures – the 2009 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film of the year.
From today (26th April) until the end of 9th May 2010, the film will be available exclusively to members plus available to ‘Watch Online’ for free as part of Unlimited subscription packages with the LOVEFiLM Player at:
http://www.lovefilm.com/film/Departures/126662/
Departures was chosen over Waltz With Bashir and The Class to take the Oscar and has collected a further 13 awards including Best Actor (Masahiro Motoki) at the 3rd Asian Film Awards and the Mercedes Benz Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 20th Palm Springs International Film Festival.
The exclusive will be promoted via a LOVEFiLM homepage takeover on the 27th and 28th April, highlighted on the homepage as ‘Online Film of the Week’ plus communicated through the weekly newsletter (received by over one million members).
The home entertainment deal follows theatrical activity for the film in December 2009 that saw LOVEFiLM offer members an exclusive screening of the film, targeted communication to members interested in foreign language films plus online promotion and competitions for the release.
Chris Bird, Director of Film Strategy at LOVEFiLM, said:
“Departures has become a cult film which has received significant critical acclaim from no less than 16 international and domestic film events. We had a great reaction to the activity we ran for it’s theatrical release, so we’re looking forward to highlighting the title to even more of our members that might have missed the release and are interested in watching it at home. The fact that we’ve got it on all formats also means that we can reach a great audience who can choose from either digital or disc delivery.”
