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 In a sign of the company's ambitions, Netflix mounted a
high-profile campaign to win the feature documentary category at
Sunday's Academy Awards with "Virunga," the story of rare
gorillas threatened by unrest and oil drilling in the Congo's
Virunga National Park.
It ran full-page ads in The New York Times, took over billboards
in Hollywood, and hosted a screening attended by Bill and
Hillary Clinton. Executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio helped
promote the film.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was a fixture on the
Hollywood awards circuit, rubbing shoulders with top producers,
actors and directors as the company adds to its documentary
slate and moves into original feature films.
Its visible Oscar push is one way Netflix aims to expand the
reach of documentaries, Lisa Nishimura, Netflix vice president
of original documentary and comedy, said in an interview.
Most documentaries that make it to theaters come and go quickly.
The original documentaries on Netflix's subscription service can
live on-demand for years.
"We are bringing these films to a very global audience,"
Nishimura said. "You start that conversation and people can
easily access and continue to grow the profile of that film."
"Virunga" debuted in a limited number of theaters and on Netflix
in November.
The company does not release viewership figures among its 57
million subscribers in 50 countries, so it is unclear if big
audiences have watched "Virunga" or other Netflix documentaries
such as "Mitt," "Mission Blue" or "The Square," an Oscar nominee
last year.
The service can stimulate interest using viewer data for
personalized recommendations, Nishimura said.
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A customer, for example, might prefer romantic comedies on Friday
night after a busy week but gravitate to documentaries on Sunday
afternoon. If Netflix's computer algorithm detects that pattern, it
can suggest documentaries when a person is most likely to watch.
"Being there at the time the consumer is ready is really the
secret," she said.
Awards experts say "Virunga" could pull off an upset win at the
Oscars, though the favorite is "Citizenfour" about U.S. government
whistleblower Edward Snowden. "Citizenfour" was released by The
Weinstein Company's Radius-TWC unit.
A victory for Netflix would burnish its Hollywood credentials as it
faces competition from streaming outlets like Amazon.com Inc.
Netflix is adding documentaries such as "What Happened, Miss
Simone?," the story of singer Nina Simone that premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival. Nishimura and her team will visit film
festivals around the world in search of new titles, she said.
New distributors such as Netflix and CNN Films, owned by Time Warner
Inc, have boosted interest in documentaries and encouraged
filmmakers to push boundaries, said Laura Poitras, director of "Citizenfour."
"We’re seeing this expansion of what non-fiction can be in
storytelling," Poitras said. "I think they're more thrilling than a
lot of fiction films."
(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Mary Milliken and
Marguerita Choy)
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