Envoi platform will power the video-on-demand streaming for all virtual live events, television shows across the Pan African Film Festival's website.
The Pan African Film Festival “PAFF” has announced a five-year partnership where PAFF has agreed to license Envoi’s technology platform to power the PAFF-V 2021 festival. The partnership will provide both PAFF and all participating content creators and distributors in PAFF-V 2021 with the technology and cloud computing services for independently distributing and monetising their TV and Films. The Envoi platform will power the video-on-demand streaming for all virtual live events, virtual television shows to a world-wide audience across PAFF’s website, and its newly launched TV networks on the Apple, Amazon, and Android smart TV platforms.
In February 2021, during the PAFF-V 2021 virtual film festival, over 175 international films made by and/or about people of African descent will be streamed online.
The mission of PAFF is to promote cultural and racial tolerance through the exhibition of film, art, and creative expression. From its founding, PAFF has been committed to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the festival and its community work day-to-day. It has continued this commitment for the past 29 years. PAFF believes all people—regardless of race, ethnicity, income, age, gender and gender presentation, sex, sexual orientation, culture, religious beliefs, education, physical ability, national origin or skin colour—are equal and have the right to live in peace. It further believes that all people have a right to tell their stories and define their communities for the world in which we all live.
Envoi is cloud-based content management, distribution, and TV and Film monetisation platform. For the PAFF-V 2021, it will be powering the cloud services handling customer acquisition, ticket purchasing, live streaming, and video-on-demand delivery.
PAFF and Envoi have also announced a partnership where Envoi will provide its cloud platform to any content creator or distributor seeking to independently distribute and monetize their TV Shows and Films to global audiences. The offering will allow creators to directly control how their TV Shows or Film will be monetised with either a free with “Ads” or paid via “Pay Per View”, “Rental”, or “Person to Person Gifting” purchase option.
Nicholas Stokes, CEO, Envoi, said; “The film industry in the US has been particularly hard hit by the global pandemic. Traditional theatres have been closed due to COVID-19 now for 10 months and creators need solutions to monetise their content directly. Through our partnership with PAFF, we are enabling filmmakers to get their content in front of a global audience and directly monetise their creative work without giving up ownership, distribution rights, or first-person customer data. By providing creators with our enterprise customer relationship management platform “CRM” the playing field will be levelled and filmmakers will be able to directly communicate with their audience, further democratising the management of customer acquisition and communication.”
Ayuko Babu, Executive Director of PAFF, added: “PAFF will once again offer a platform for people of African descent and others to exhibit film, art and creative expression. Whilst it is a shame that we cannot be meeting face-to-face and in-person, our innovative new platform promises to be a diverse and unique experience for viewers.”
