Dec. 28--Cinephiles and parents alike can take note: Options for streaming just increased. While the project is surely the runt of the litter in the brutally competitive world of streaming video, Facets Kids has arrived to fill a niche that, its founders say, has long gone unfilled. Now viewers can find new content that isn't designed to sell toys or happy meals.
And that's just the beginning of what sets Facets Kids apart. Diversity is a hallmark of the subscription-based service, from the age ranges of the intended audience (ages 2 to 12) to the films' countries of origin. The platform's current catalog comprises about 500 films -- 90 percent of them shorts, both animated and live action -- which hail from four dozen countries all over the globe. More than half are not in English.
"Digital media is a profound influence in children's lives," says Milos Stehlik, director of Facets, Chicago's small but long-standing non-profit arts organization dedicated to independent films. Stehlik speaks of "good media" and "bad media," and it's clear on which side of that divide he believes Facets Kids' selections fall.
"Films can introduce kids to other cultures and other languages ... (and) can provoke kids to think for themselves. Films can become a positive emotional and social force in their lives."
The roots of this new streaming option, which went live this past summer after a long gestation period, lie in one of Facets' oldest initiatives: the annual Chicago International Children's Film Festival. That means the streaming app's well-curated catalog draws on more than three decades of experience in programming a family festival.
"All the films have been vetted by us," Stehlik says.
CICFF, which just wrapped up its 32nd festival Nov. 1, carries the imprimatur of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2002 -- in other words, the shorts recommended by the adult jury qualify for Oscar consideration. This focus on quality carries over into Facets Kids, says Paul Gonter, the organization's digital media and project coordinator.
"One of the most important things about Facets Kids is that you aren't just being introduced to a large amount of content produced in the United States," he says. "We have a huge amount of films produced in other countries, told from a kids' point of view. That's a huge advantage, especially if you're in a multilingual or global-minded household. Nothing's dumbed down, the films are not pandering to kids, and they're not relying on brand recognition."
The streaming initiative has been in the works for three years, ramping up just over a year ago. That's when Facets launched a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising more than $54,000, which helped their small team take the app out of beta stage into full production. But really, Stehlik says, the desire for Facets Kids goes back decades, connected to a "frustration" on the part of families who saw films they enjoyed each year at the festival. "Parents asked, 'How can we see this film again?' The answer was, 'You can't,' " Stehlik recalls.
Although Facets runs its own rental business, families couldn't opt to see the films that way, either: The large majority of feature films and shorts shown at CICFF generally just aren't available for commercial rental.
Eventually, Facets launched a one-time commercial enterprise to fill that consumer desire.
Investing $35,000, the organization produced a compilation DVD called "Best of the Fest," which collected 10 short films from the mid-'00s. "That was the one and only time we had the money to do it," Stehlik says. "We bought public-performance rights to those films ... and it was pretty successful."
In addition to sales to consumers, Facets distributed about 2,000 copies of the DVD into library collections around the U.S., but the effort was too expensive and complex to attempt every year.
Fast forward a decade, when the advance of streaming changes the home-viewing landscape.
"Here's an instance of technology making something possible, getting around roadblocks which existed for decades," Stehlik says. "This can really connect kids to films they'd otherwise never be able to experience. And the other side of it, of course, is creating a market for filmmakers whose films had no future in terms of distribution in America."
Designed to work on home computers and mobile devices, Facets Kids (facets.org/kids/) lets users sort films by age and content. Colorful icons that look like whimsical polygonal variations on emoticons help kids navigate the kinds of films they're looking for -- e.g., "happy" or "scared," "think" or "care." Parents can add up to four children per account, entering their birthdays, which will then lock users out of content above their recommended age level. Subscriptions cost $6 per month or $50 per year; new users can sign up for a free trial month (although they still have to give credit-card info to start the account). The filmmakers get a portion of the revenue.
And how is the initiative going so far? Slowly, as anticipated. Stehlik reveals they're on track to hit their short-term goal of reaching 1,000 subscribers by year's end. Gonter adds they're also drawing on their close connections with the Chicago Public Schools and with library systems to get into those institutions.
Still, it's an uphill fight for a nonprofit with no significant marketing budget. "Obviously the noise in the marketplace we're fighting is really immense," Stehlik says. "The most difficult part in selling Facets Kids is that most parents and kids have no idea that films like this exist. Only by seeing them and by experiencing them do they understand that there's another world of cinema out there. It is not manipulative, it is creative and it's not programmed at getting kids to do a certain thing, which in most cases is: consume."
Web Behrens is a freelance writer.
ctc-movies@tribune.com
