
Apply HN: The first VOD platform for watching African short films - hubrif
Hubrif is an online video platform for filmmakers and audiences of African short films. The one-stop community for streaming award winning and thought provoking short films made by Africans. Built and designed by filmmakers, Hubrif’s goal is to enable you easily discover, watch and share stories from Africa on your desktop, laptop and mobile devices.
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buss
Is this targeting the indie filmmaker market? How big is that market in
Africa? What other markets could you expand to with the same technology?

Or is this like an African-focused YouTube targeting amateurs? How is adoption
of video sharing sites in Africa?

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hubrif
Thanks for the comment. Yes, It is targeted at indie filmmakers. However, i
should add that its a curated site dedicated to bringing the best short films
in African or made by Africans in terms of picture quality and story-line.
This means that not all films submitted to hubrif gets accepted to be hosted
on the platform. We are also looking at partnering with African film festivals
all over the world too to host a curated selection of films for an online
audience. The first of this partnership is with the maiden edition of Kampala
Short Film Festival. the official hubrif channel of the festival will soon go
live on the platform.

We want to sorely focus on African theme short films for now. I wont say its
an African-focused YouTube thing, We want to solve the problem which YouTube
cant solve in terms of making African short films easily discovered.

lastly, the adoption of video sharing sites in Africa is expanding rapidly and
we believe this is the right time for hubrif to be born especially with the
fact that short films in Africa are being taken seriously now.

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ryporter
Why can't YouTube make African short films easily discovered? They have lots
of data about their users, including location and past viewing history.

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hubrif
That is a question that i have asked myself a million times in the past. since
there is no solution, my team and I decide to find a solution to our own
problem.

The truth is YouTube has just generally evolved to support personal comedy
clips and cat videos. Short films are relegated to the back and given little
attention.

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pjlegato
Why not just make your own African short films YouTube channel and promote it?

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hubrif
There are a couple of short films channels on youtube and we just dont want to
be another shortfilm channel on the platform. We believe having a separate
entity platform will make it easier for the world to find us with rigorious
marketing in the long run.

The whoe idea is that youtube remains d site to go to to watch other video
contents while Hubrif be the site to go to to watch African short films

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ryporter
Out of curiosity, what's the origin of the name? Is it pronounced like "hub
riff" or "hubris" with the last letter changed?

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hubrif
lol. Thanks alot for the comment. It is pronounced as 'hor brif'. coined the
name from 'hub' which means a community while 'brif' as in brief contents or
short contents.. i hope its clear?

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hubrif
i forgot to add, you can visit the site and see things for yourself. More
feedbacks will be highly appreciated www.hubrif.com

