Elizabeth Olsen is no stranger to indie movies, having cut her acting teeth on the sublime Silent House and Martha Marcy May Marlene.
This month sees her star in two films that showcase the polarization of cinema at the moment. The first, needs little introduction - Avengers: Infinity War is absolutely everywhere. But then there's Kodachrome, an indie - set around the last days of Kodak’s celebrated film format - that's debuting on Netflix.
As a platform, Netflix is often cited as ‘the end of cinema’ as we know it but Olsen, speaking to IndieWire disagrees.
Infinity, and beyond
“For some reason, I feel like ‘Kodachrome,’ it made sense to me for it to be on Netflix. It’s the perfect place for it. I think it will get seen more because of it being on Netflix,” she explained, going on to note that “being able to have a platform like Netflix for independent films, for television, for comedy, I just think that they are creating a larger audience for projects. I think that’s very cool.”
Netflix has been busy adding to its indies palette, plucking what it can from the various indie festivals to showcase on its platform. These movies have included Icarus and one of the reasons Netflix seems to be so liked by the independent movie makers is that they apparently pay more than other distributors.
According Streaming Media, they can sometimes pay up to two thirds more than other traditional distributors. For this, they get full global rights, though.
For Olsen, the main thing is that Netflix is a platform where a movie such as Kodachrome would actually be seen.
“I think theatrical releases should always happen for most projects,” she believes but “It’s not really gonna be a service to the film if we just put it in a movie theater and it goes away in a couple weeks.”
- These are the best movies on Netflix right now
