CineConnect
Play Studios is building CineConnect.
Independent films deserve an audience.
Extraordinary stories are made every day. Too many never find their viewers. CineConnect brings independent filmmakers, local spaces and audiences together — so films can be seen, their makers can earn, and communities can gather around stories that matter to them.
A finished film should be a beginning.
A filmmaker can spend years bringing a story to life. Then comes another struggle: finding someone willing to release it, places willing to show it, and people who know it exists.
Festival selections, distribution deals and platform acquisitions open doors for only a few films. Most others are left waiting.
We are building another route.
A film can begin with a community, travel to another space, and find new viewers in another city. Its journey can continue over time, through local screenings, online gatherings and individual viewing.
For the filmmaker, that means more opportunities to earn from the work, build a relationship with an audience, and move towards the next film.
A film. A space. People who want to see it.
A café, gallery, bookshop, campus or community space can become a place for cinema. CineConnect helps connect the film and its maker with hosts, audiences and people who will help spread the word.
- 01 Bring a film. Filmmakers can plan a release with CineConnect or lead their own release using the network.
- 02 Bring people together. Hosts programme film evenings in their spaces. Audiences discover screenings, book a seat and invite others.
- 03 Keep the film travelling. Recommendations, promoters and new hosts help a film reach its next audience, in another neighbourhood or city.
What changes for each of us
For filmmakers
Your film can keep finding its people.
Reach audiences beyond a single festival, release weekend or platform decision. Bring your work to spaces where people choose to come together and watch it.
Build a screening journey, earn under agreed terms and develop an audience that can follow your work. Selected events can include conversations with you or your collaborators, when available.
For audiences
Discover more than the films you hear most about.
Find stories, languages and perspectives that may never reach your local multiplex or the front page of a streaming service.
Make an evening of it: discover a space, watch with others and stay for the conversation where one is programmed. Join an online screening with a community, from anywhere, or rent or buy available films.
Your participation can go beyond watching. Bring friends, share a film you believe in, or become a promoter and help it reach more people.
For hosts
Give your space a cultural life of its own.
Your café, gallery, film club or community space already brings people together. Cinema gives them another reason to visit — and a reason to return.
Programme distinctive evenings, welcome new audiences, deepen relationships with regulars and earn from screenings. Over time, your space can become somewhere people come for stories, ideas and conversations.
You do not have to run a full-time theatre to make cinema part of your community.
For promoters and film lovers
Help a film travel because it matters to you.
Perhaps it speaks your language, reflects your community or tells a story you want others to hear. Your recommendation can help that film find its audience.
Use ready-made sharing material and film links to reach your friends, followers, film clubs and communities. As a registered promoter, you can earn from eligible bookings through your referral link, under the programme’s terms.
You do not need to be a celebrity to make a difference to a film’s journey.
Beyond the room
Near you. Or wherever you are.
Local screenings are at the heart of CineConnect. Online community screenings extend that experience to people who cannot be in the same place.
Rent and buy options offer another way to discover available films at your own pace. Together, these routes give films more ways to reach people — and people more ways to take part.
Partners help make it possible
Stand behind independent cinema.
Presenting partners
Businesses can support a city’s continuing film programme while building goodwill, connecting with communities and receiving agreed branding, content and screening benefits. Partnerships can cover one city or an agreed group of cities.
CSR and cultural partners
Organisations can help build programmes around community access, regional culture, learning and accessible participation, with defined objectives, budgets and reporting.
How we work
More opportunity, with clear terms.
Room for independent voices
No listing fee and no exclusivity requirement. Filmmakers retain their rights and agree the permissions needed for their release.
Value for the people involved
Paid screenings create income to be shared under agreed terms. Release costs, host shares, promoter earnings and CineConnect’s fees are set out for the relevant arrangement.
A shared effort
Reaching an audience takes work. Filmmakers, hosts, promoters and CineConnect each contribute.
The world we want to help build
More stories. More places to meet.
When more independent films reach audiences, more people have the chance to see their own lives represented — and encounter lives different from their own. Regional languages, overlooked experiences and unfamiliar perspectives gain space.
When filmmakers can earn, they have more opportunity to keep creating. When local spaces bring people together regularly, they can become part of a neighbourhood’s cultural life.
This is what we want CineConnect to contribute to: a world with more room for independent voices, more opportunities to discover them, and more places where people can meet, question, disagree and connect.
A film finds an audience. A conversation begins. The next story has a chance.
Write to akr@playstudios.world.