See the original story in Japanese.

It was announced yesterday that Keio Media Design’s ^[1] indie film portal site, Node, will tie up with Singapore-based Viddsee, an online movie shorts startup. You may remember that Viddsee raised $40,000 from ACE Singapore back in November of 2013 ^[2].

Node has been introducing films online with the goal of helping independent directors. Through this partnership, Node will set up a Japan-focused channel called Node Japan on Viddsee, showing Japanese indie films to a global audience, with English subtitles added. As we write this, the following four titles are available with more to be added later:

• Tales from the Cottage (by Takafumi Tachibana)
• A Flower in a Part (by Asami Tomatsuri)
• A Treasure (by Yuki Yamaguchi)
• Rootless Heart (by Toshiko Hata)

Node was initially launched back in July of 2013 to create value through connecting people and groups. Viddsee was launched in March of 2013 by Singaporean entrepreneurs Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan to give people a better chance to access to short films from Asia.

While most established directors can show their works at the many movie festivals worldwide and through other distribution channels, opportunities for new directors are limited. Even if a film is focused on a very niche topic, this partnership can help it reach an interested global audience.

Some of our readers may recall Singapore’s video streaming website Viki was acquired by Rakuten for $200 million back last September. As both wired and mobile broadband internet are rapidly developing in Asia, viewing professional content on the internet is becoming a viable entertainment option for people as an alternative to conventional broadcasting.