Friday, March 29, 2024

The First Film Festival of The Metaverse Shatters Expectations

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Sourced Photo

Image commercially licensed from: Unsplash

 

After months of preparation, MILC, founded by Hendrik Hey, and The Film Verdict, led by Eric Mika, successfully launched The Alpha Film Festival (AFF), the first-ever film festival to take place in the metaverse. The festival took place in the MILC metaverse, in their Art Tower, from March 3rd through the 7th. Despite little promotion, the audience participation at the festival surpassed all expectations and very well may have set the stage for future Web3 events.

MILC was created to bridge the gap between content creators and their audiences. The platform has consistently aimed to build a sense of community and cultivate an engaging experience for users of all kinds. Despite the growing popularity of the metaverse bringing more and more people to create within the ever-evolving Web3 space, the MILC metaverse has remained a one-of-a-kind platform.

With previous successful events in their portfolio, MILC’s metaverse was the natural choice for the AFF, and with similar goals regarding the potential of Web3 and their previous work with film festivals, bringing this event to life with The Film Verdict’s team made the most sense.

“The Film Verdict is a disruptor. I am a disrupter. Hey is a disrupter. MILC is a disruptor. So, it was only natural that we collaborate and introduce how disruptors, like the Alpha Film Festival, can collaborate with traditional film festivals and offer a new entry point into film festivals for a new generation. The Alpha Film Festival was a real success all around and now we have a showcase to build upon. I am delighted to be working with Hey and his team,” said Mika.

Audience Engagement

True to the nature of the MILC platform, the event was geared toward the audience just as much as the creators of the films. To enhance community engagement and participation, the festival included a poster competition to generate excitement and reward the participants. The prize of the competition was a pool of MILC’s metaverse currency, MLT tokens.

Along with the tokens, there were 500 NFTs available for the poster competition, with 10 for each of the 50 designs. All ticket holders were eligible to receive one limited edition NFT per purchased ticket.

Audience members were encouraged to play a vital role in awarding a short film winner with the 2023 Audience Award, given to Baloji’s film Zombies. The festival was meant to be inclusive and engaging, so there were additional public voting strategies for the official selection of the films and the festival poster design.

“The Alpha Film Festival was a great exhibit for an event with great quality. Together with industry partners and the audience, we want to make this brand big and relevant. It was also meant to be inclusive and a space for established festivals to expand into. The major advantage is that suddenly a lot more people can participate,” said Hey.

As they hoped, the gap between the audience and creators was certainly bridged with all that AFF had to offer attendees. Despite the expectations of the festival being a learning experience, it became something else entirely as more and more people attended. There were over 20,000 side requests, 19% from the U.S., 25% from Germany, and 16% from the U.K. There were roughly 200 tickets sold, around 9,000 streamed video assets, and 296 entries to the Art Gallery.

“The AFF was born, and it will be the most relevant film festival on Web3. Those who know us, know that we never start something without continuously expanding it with diligence and passion. It is one of our greatest strengths,” said Hey.

About the AFF

Writer for The Film Verdict and short-film expert Ben Nicholson curated the festival, which featured 30 short films from around the world, all centered around the theme of The Future. Of the 30 films, 12 were included in the main program and available for streaming over the course of the festival.

Also scheduled were three evenings of live panel discussions centered around the futuristic theme and covering topics such as Film3. Panelists discussed the use of AI for filmmakers and artists and the currently blurred lines between gaming and film. Accompanying the panel discussions were live screenings of short films that mirrored the topics broached on the panels.

About MILC

Hendrik Hey is the founder of MILC (Media Industry Licensing Content), a blockchain-based content licensing company aimed at democratizing the content media buying and distribution industry. MILC is a sister company of European media giant Welt der Wunder, which Hey also founded more than 25 years ago. For more information about how MILC empowers content creators in web3, please visit https://www.milc.global

 

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