After giving us films like Drive and The Neon Demon, visionary filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has today launched a streaming service of his own, dedicated to cult genre films that have largely flown under the mainstream radar over the years. He’s billing the service, fittingly titled byNWR, as being “an unadulterated expressway for the arts.”
In an article he wrote for The Guardian, Refn recently teased byNWR…
“I want [the future] to be an uncontrolled place of beautiful chaos, where everyone can create their own universe and is free to speak their own mind, without being overseen by big business. A place of free speech and free access,” Refn told the site. “Over recent years, I’ve bought and had restored scores of old movies as a hobby. I wondered what to do with them. Then I realized I should share them for free, so I set up a website where they could be streamed. There’s no catch; you’re not being sold anything. Take it or leave it.”
He continued, “I hope my site will inspire people to see the world a different way. Setting it up has helped me reconcile myself to a different concept of culture than the traditional, romantic one I was raised with. People of my generation – I’m 47 – want tangible tokens of mortality to cling to. But nostalgia is artistic suicide. You have to accept the fact that everything disintegrates in your hands.”
The first batch of films, curated by guest editors, are split up into two volumes: “Regional Renegades” and “Missing Links.” Titles available to stream at launch include The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds, Hot Thrills and Warm Chills and Shanty Tramp, with Night Tide, If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? and Spring Night, Summer Night coming later this year.
Head over to the byNWR website to poke around and watch some movies… for free!
