They call it an alternative to online video channels so that their videos don't have to compete for attention with short home-videos of birthdays, cats and lip synching to music. Two young Uruguayans decided to change the situation and created Cip, a website dedicated to showcasing the works of independent film-makers, so they can take their films out of their desk drawers and share them with a wider community, much in the same way that it works in theaters, with premieres, seasons and different viewing rooms.
Thanks to @damianemanuel1 on twitter we discovered this video site, when he posted:
Cine virtual desde Uruguay para combatir la chatarra de YouTube http://bit.ly/V39pT
In the words of the creators of the site, Andrés Nicolón and José Luis Elizalde, their website answers to the needs of film-makers who want their work to get known:
¿Dónde puedo exhibir seriamente mis obras en un medio tan masivo, económico y accesible como Internet? ¿Cómo puede ser reconocida mi labor (actriz, actor, guionista, director, camarógrafo, productor, músico, etc.) en cine? ¿No tengo alternativa y debo publicar mi trabajo junto con los top 10 de mejores bloopers de gente montando a caballo? ¿Siempre los más conocidos son los que ocupan el lugar más importante?
Cip not only provides the possibility to showcase short films on their site, they also provide other services: they can help film-makers with post-production and editing, effects and presentation. They can also make all the promotional and marketing material for films such as posters, trailers and advertising in general, or promote a film as a starred movie for more exposure.
Currently they have 7 films in their site, 4 of them from Spain, one a collaborative effort, and 2 Uruguayan shorts, one fiction and one a documentary. All of the films can be downloaded in an iPod compatible format. Sadly, the site doesn't allow for embedding, but you can view their movies by heading over to their site,http://www.cip.com.uy/.