Movie can be bought at prices starting at Rs. 180.
By AB Wire
National Award winning Malayalam movie ‘Ottaal’ directed by Jayaraj is all set to create history by becoming the first movie in India to release simultaneously in theaters and online.
According to a press release of Reelmonk (www.reelmonk.com), an independent movie platform, the movie will be released in theaters and online on the same day on November 6th. Users can download the movie from Reelmonk.com at prices starting at Rs. 180.
Even though many Malayalam movies release in Kerala, over 90% of these movies don’t release in sheathes abroad. Many of the Malayalees living abroad are forced to resort to downloading these movies from torrent networks, which are illegal and come at a very low quality.
Reelmonk has now offered the Indian diaspora a new visual experience by legally releasing films that can be either streamed or downloaded from anywhere, anytime within few months after the release. The movies can be streamed or downloaded in HD quality via Reelmonk and can be layed in a laptop or even streamed via HDMI.
“Malayalam movie industry is rich in diversity of great content. I have noticed great interest for Malayalam movies from a global community of movie lovers. Reelmonk.com will give them the opportunity to access the Malayalam movies they love, easily especially with features like pay per download and subtitles,” said Jayaraj, director of ‘Ottaal’.
Reelmonk.com, created by Xincoz Labs, is the brainchild of three 22 year olds from Kochi – Blaise Crowly, Vivek Paul and Gautham Vyas and is promoted by Konglo Ventures. “After ‘Ottaal’ won the Best Film award this year, it’s caught the interest of the foreign audience and our users have been constantly following up with us to release it since then”, said Blaise Crowly, CEO, Reelmonk.com. “Till recently, most people were not ready to pay for something that was already available through torrent networks. But today, there is a market and producers are recognizing the revenue potential of online release. By reaching viewers in places where the films are not available through theatres or TV channels producers are now discovering an additional revenue source. The only people who are adversely affected by us are the movie pirates” he added.
“When we decided to begin Reelmonk.com, we always pitched it as a platform for same day release of Malayalam movies. But to our disappointment as well as for many of our users, we never managed to do that. We have hosted quite a few amazing movies like Njan Steve Lopez and Kanyaka Talkies on this platform but that dream of same day release has always evaded us. We had never imagined it would be this difficult. In this industry the concept of Online Release simply didn’t exist, let alone same day release. But we think it was worth the wait. And what better way to do it than with what is literally the ‘Best Film’ of the year.” Says Vivek Paul, Chief Operating Officer, Reelmonk.com. “Lot of effort and sacrifice goes into creating a movie and it is shattering when elements such as piracy, lack of releasing platforms and other issues destroy this work. Piracy happens due to non-availability of content. When content is easy to access at a reasonable price we believe piracy will take a back seat”, he added.
‘Ottaal’, an adaptation of ‘Vanka’, a short story by Russian writer Anton Chekhov, has won two national awards for Best Screenplay and Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Film in August. It has been selected to the Indian Panorama of the International Film Festival of India to be held in Goa this year.