Mubi brings arthouse to your house

The new Mubi service introduces a catalogue of 500 arthouse, independent, international, classic and festival-winning movies to living rooms via Playstation 3 consoles from today. The service makes it easier for film enthusiasts to enjoy hard-to source titles such as those which received no, or only limited, local theatrical release, or which have not been released on DVD. New filmmakers can also submit their works to the service, with those selected by Mubi’s curators made available via Mubi Garage.

Movies are streamed in standard definition via the PS3’s broadband connection, with short films costing from $1.75 and feature length films $6.25 for a seven-day rental period. A monthly subscription of $19.95 provides unlimited access to the library, and file sizes are between 500 and 700MB.

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A sample of the Mubi catalogue includes Palme d’Or winner Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, and Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother, plus a breadth of masterpieces ranging from Suspiria to Antonioni’s L’avventura, to Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Australian films include Monkey Grip and Barrie McKenzie, among others.

Mubi will also make some titles regularly available for free, and from today these include restorations of two classics Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, Ki-young Kim’s The Housemaid and Metin Erksan’s Dry Summer for free Ki-young Kim’s The Housemaid and Metin Erksan’s Dry Summer.

The Mubi application complements the offering of mainstream studio titles available via the PS3’s Video Delivery Service and is available as a free download from the Playstation Store on the Playstation Network. A one-click link to Facebook and Twitter is also provided, allowing enthusiasts to share and recommend movies to their social network.

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Mubi is available in 18 different countries through an install base of 16 million Playstation 3 consoles, according to the company. Australia currently has an install base of one million PS3 consoles, with around 65 percent of those connected to the Net and able to receive the service. While Mubi is currently exclusive to Playstation, founder Efe Carkarel, suggests it’s likely to appear in televisions and mobile phones from Sony in the future.