Tiscali Press Release - TISCALI 'RAINDANCES' INTO CANNES

Tiscali to champion the internet at the heart of the film industry

Not content with premiering films on the Internet, signing the first UK deal for movie downloads, and being one of the first legal music download companies, Tiscali UK is now taking itself to the 58th Cannes Film Festival 2005, sponsoring several events and highlighting its ongoing support for entertainment and the British film industry specifically.

Hosted by the British Independent Film Association (BIFA) and Raindance, Tiscali will be filming Live! Ammunition on Saturday 14th May. The event gives hopeful, emerging directors the chance to perfect the art of pitching their ideas to top industry figures one on one. The best pitches will be then be shown on www.tiscali.co.uk . Live! Ammunition will be followed by a BIFA VIP Reception in the Grand Hotel Garden, British Pavilion.

Alongside this, Tiscali is also be sponsoring a very special event at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) on Monday 16th May. Co-sponsored by TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and Variety, the event will begin with the screening of Sam Peckinpah's classic western Ride the High Country followed by an industry-led panel discussion on the great director. To end the evening, there is a cocktail reception at the Noga Hilton Penthouse.

Richard Ayers, Editor for Tiscali.co.uk says: "Tiscali provides some of the finest quality entertainment content online, and we will continue to showcase the best in emerging talent, both in film and in music. The Internet is a fantastic medium, but is under-exploited by the film industry and we want to help change that.

He continues: "Now there is significant adoption of broadband in the UK and access speeds are increasing, there is a huge opportunity there waiting to be grabbed. We are looking for film distributors to open up their portfolio of films and make them available for download rental. Music has proved there is a sizeable paying public out there who don%u2019t want to 'steal' music or movies but do want an on-demand service."

The leading ISP also believes there is a huge opportunity for the film industry to not only commercialise newer mainstream releases, but also to revitalise and increase revenue from back catalogue and more niche genres such as French films, classics and martial arts movies.

Tiscali aims to bring exclusive content from the Cannes Film Festival, including interviews with prominent artists and industry parties to www.tiscali.co.uk.

Earlier this year, Tiscali UK announced a partnership which saw the company become a major sponsor of the 2005 Raindance Film Festival - dedicated to fostering and promoting independent film in the UK and around the world.

In 2004, Tiscali was announced as a major sponsor of the International Rotterdam Film Festival (26 January - 6 February 2005), where they launched an experiment to distribute arthouse films over the Internet. The first of which was Theo van Gogh's film 06/05 - about the assassination of Dutch right-wing politician, Pim Fortuyn.

This was the first European feature film to be legally broadcast on the Internet before its theatrical release. Tiscali, who financed the 2million euros feature, allowed the film to be downloaded over a period of four days for a fee of 5 euros. In the first couple of hours, thousands of Dutch web surfers had bought the film.