Democratising access to domestic audiovisual production in the digital environment: the case of the Argentinian VOD service Cine.Ar Play

This article analyses the case of Cine.Ar Play, an Argentinian video-on-demand service (VOD) launched in 2015 by the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) with the support of the state-owned telecommunications company ARSAT. Cine.Ar Play expresses the will to democratise access to domestic audiovisual production, intervening in the distribution and dissemination phase. This VOD service is particularly relevant in a country with a considerable territorial extension and a high volume of domestic films that do not find adequate conditions for their commercial exploitation. Two elements stand out in the case of Cine.Ar Play: its insertion in a public policy led by the INCAA, whose aim is to guarantee the circulation of works produced in the country, and the implementation of a particular mechanism that serves to nurture the service's catalogue by linking public funding for new film projects with the temporary and non-exclusive transfer of exhibition rights. Six years after its launch, the service has more than two million users and has a catalogue of more than 3,300 titles.