YouTube has opened an indie film screening program called YouTube Screening Room. They’ll release 4 films every two weeks, both animation and real action short films, featuring award winning high quality movies. YouTube really steps away from it’s regular distribution methods, for the program it drops it’s 10 minute limit and experiments with a higher video quality. Moreover, all screened indie short films take part in a revenue sharing program. What’s really thrilling is, that you can buy the films directly from the page via direct download (1.99$) or DVD. Looks like a new distribution channel for the indie film industry?! Submit your film to ytscreeningroom@youtube.com

From the first batch of films I deeply enjoyed Miranda July’s “Are you the favourite person of anybody?”

What’s interesting is, that Atom films tried to push exactly the same idea for about ten! years and finally failed and has become a sub brand of comedy central. YouTube has a much bigger audience so I’m quite excited that they might can create more awareness for indie films.

What I don’t understand is that YouTube constricts the community tools for the Screening Room. You can’t embed the films, there’s no option for commenting or bookmarking them. Haven’t those tool been the key to YouTube’s success? So why do they make a step backward for distributing indie films?