Wayne Wang, known for his big-budget Hollywood feel-goods, returns to his roots

THE PRINCESS OF NEBRASKA

On October 17th, he released The Princess of Nebraska, a barebones drama about a teenage Chinese immigrant dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. And he released it in an unorthodox way: in YouTube's Screening Room, in high-definition, for free. The film garnered nearly 200,000 views in one week, making it the biggest online full-length feature release to date (and a clear success when compared with a traditional indie box office release, which is lucky to sell 30,000 tickets).

Wang chose to release the film online as a companion piece to A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, a simultaneous theatrical release that's the more traditional of the two. Both films are based on elegant short stories by the young Chinese author, Yuyun Li, and explore the lives of recent female immigrants searching for identity and stability in a new country. Told he couldn't release the films as a double feature by his distributor, Wang and his team turned to other avenues. "We thought, wouldn't it be fun and a bit revolutionary to take a brand new film by a veteran filmmaker and put it on YouTube?" says Matt Dentler, an executive at Cinetic responsible for brokering the YouTube deal. "The film is now attracting audiences that a theatrical film would never attract—people who don't live in a major city and would not have a chance to see the movie are flocking to it. This is a good sign for the independent filmmaker, and it's much like what Radiohead did by giving away their music online. You don't have to always go the traditional route."

From at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-27/straight-to-video/

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