Film Europe's founder Ivan Hronec said Edisonline will be the first Czech-Slovak online festival videotheque, stressing that it was not a move that was in reaction to the current Covid-19 crisis, but had been part of the company’s original vision for Filmhub, which also consists of arthouse cinemas and cafes in Bratislava and Prague.

Hronec told FNE that he was overseeing the launch of the VoD platform from Bratislava, where he is waiting out the coronavirus lockdown with his family.

The monthly membership fee is set at 6 EUR, the equivalent of a single cinema admission. The VoD platform launched on 28 April 2020 contains 50 films, most of them European films that were awarded at Cannes, Venice or Berlin, along with 12 children’s films and access to the online broadcasting of films on the company’s channels Be2Can and Ceskoslovensko, which includes an archive of Slovak and Czech films. Those two channels will be consolidated into a single channel in May 2020.

Hronec also said in a statement, “A month after the closing of cinemas we offer the cultural community some real financial aid. The state of course must not close its eyes to the problem, but we have to be able to help one another as well. Therefore, every 155 CZK that the viewer pays for monthly use of Edisonline will be divided among producers, distributors and the platform providers. A total of 20% of the amount will then be used as support for cultural spaces affected by the quarantine and crisis. It will be received by either the mediator of the service sale, be it a cinema, film magazine, school, theatre, gallery, festival, or the viewer who bought the service directly can donate these 20% of the subscription to their favourite institution. The idea of such microsponsoring is to invite everyone to the film space of solidarity for the 21st century.”