A slate of 15 restored Mongolian films will be launched on blockchain-powered rights platform Cinemarket. The restoration and sales project is the initiative of France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas.
Vesoul – whose founders Martine and Jean-Marc Therouanne were honored Thursday at the Busan International Film Festival for their contribution to Korean cinema – this year programmed a major retrospective of largely unseen Mongolian movies.
Following the festival screenings, Vesoul signed a partnership with Mongolian rights holders in order to bring the films to a wider audience. It has now signed an exclusive agreement with Cinemarket for screening, programing and rights sales.
The 15 titles date from 1936 (“Mongol Son,” by Ilya Trauberg) to 1991 (“Traces of an Existence,” by Jigjidsuren Gombojav) representing a palette of 20th century Mongolian cinema. They range from early works influenced by propaganda and limited by censorship, through early social comedies, to more modern titles made at the time of collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cinemarket was launched earlier this year in Cannes and uses the Ethereum variant of blockchain’s distributed ledger system to provide security and transparency. The online market system allows sellers to register and take control of the life of their finished films. Buyers can use it to scout for available rights, watch films online, send offers, negotiate contracts and send minimum guarantees and royalties within a single platform.