Nasty Old People Nice

By Eric Pettifor

I just finished watching a new film out of Sweden titled Nasty Old People. I downloaded it off the internet with my trusty bittorrent client. Very rarely will I see a film in a cinema that I haven’t previewed this way. Would I shell out to see Nasty Old People on the big screen? Yes, yes, I would.

However, I can’t see it on the big screen, because it isn’t playing anywhere. The real story from a tech perspective about this lovely neo-nazi-comes-of-age film is that the distribution channel is The Pirate Bay. That’s right, they want people to grab it with their bittorrent clients.

On their web page they have links people can use to donate. I donated three dollars, which may sound cheap but which is none the less three dollars more than I’ve donated for any other film I’ve gotten via bittorrent.

Could this represent a new model for film makers? Keep the budget low and recover cost through donations? The budget for this film was about ten thousand euros, two thousand of which they’ve recovered already through donations.

If you download the film, watch it, and enjoy it, then consider giving them a couple of bucks. If enough of us do, perhaps we will see more of this sort of thing.