Over A Thousand Curated Short Films From All Around Asia On One Platform, Free of Charge: Welcome to Viddsee
If libraries were the repository for bookworms, then Viddsee is the go-to for aspiring filmmakers from all around Asia.
The Singapore-based Asian short film portal and mobile cinema began as an initiative by filmmakers, Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan who felt the need to share their works online but soon realised that there was too much clutter on platforms such as Youtube and Vimeo.
“We thought, why don’t we start a platform for awesome stories from Asia?!” recalled Viddsee co-founder Derek Tan.
From left are Viddsee founders, Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan. Photo sourced from sg.news.yahoo.com.
Launched in 2013, Viddsee’s library has grown from merely incorporating South East Asian films to including works from West and East Asia, particularly countries such as Iran, Israel, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Today, Viddsee has over a thousand curated short films on its platform, with streams from over 2 million unique audience worldwide.
Viddsee’s wild success stems from its niche of only promoting the works of Asian filmmakers. Its short films represent unique and diverse stories from Asia.
These include well-loved genres like horror, thriller, romance, comedy, drama, emerging stories about women, sexuality, and adolescence, as well as real-life stories and documentaries.
Last month, Viddsee premiered a short film for Merdeka, Seliseh by Ismail Kamarul of Reservoir Production. You can also watch films from the likes of Sharifah Amani – who not only directed but starred in Sangkar – Quek Shio Chuan, director of Guang and Sunflowers, and James Lee of Doghouse73 Pictures.
Seliseh by Ismail Kamarudin.
According to Derek, Viddsee is not just a video platform for film streaming. Viddsee sets itself apart from other available video platforms with its curation and marketing of short films.
“We believe in each film we curate and we take charge in marketing the films on our platform and social media channels. We have an editorial that help contextualise, write and promote the films to a social media audience,” stated Derek.
Improve your user experience while reducing data usage with Viddsee app. Photo sourced from techcrunch.com.
To further Viddsee’s reach and effort in bringing short films to mobile users, the team recently launched an Android app of the same name.
The app enables users to enjoy offline playback by downloading shorts via Wi-Fi, in addition to providing personalised weekly film recommendations. The app also allows the syncing of films across devices.
Viddsee however is not merely about getting films to a much wider audience. Derek enlightened us that Viddsee also helps filmmakers with their future projects. Aspiring filmmakers can submit their proposals to the platform and Viddsee will then help grow their presence and stories in order to further these projects.
We asked Derek if Viddsee would one day produce or provide grants to short films like what Netflix has done in television.
“At the moment, we are working with brands to commission short films. Besides that, we also have Viddsee Shortee where we award the most social film on Viddsee every month with a Nikon camera kit. We hope to develop plans where we can fund Viddsee originals in the future!”
Want to watch awesome short films? Head over to www.viddsee.com and binge away! Want Viddsee app on your phone now? Click here to download it for free! Want your short film on Viddsee? Make your way to www.viddsee.com/submit to submit your film in for review. Submission is free, and the rights to your films will always belong to you!
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