XDC ambitions in Sweden are consolidated with the arrival of Peter Wester, who
has introduced and established Digital Cinema in Sweden. Peter Wester, now Business Development Manager for XDC was originally
cinematographer of Swedish feature films, formed his own production company in
the 70s and turned into a successful producer of commercials and musical video
clips for the cinema and TV markets. With offices in Copenhagen and Stockholm he
was also a distributor of international feature films.
In 1999, Peter Wester joined Folkets Hus och Parker in Sweden as manager for a
new cinema project called Digital Houses. The mission was to turn ten venues,
out of 240 in the FHP chain, into fully working digital cinemas and form a
network connected via broadband and satellite. After three years, testing and
investigating most of the US and European technique for projecting feature films
in cinemas, FHP now operates 12 digital houses, all equipped with projectors
from Barco or Digital Projection and completed with EVS servers. So far over 35
movies plus five events have been screened. Some content was also distributed
and downloaded via broadband or satellite. During the season 2004-2005, over 20
movies were supplied digitally by Swedish and US distributors. The
revenues of the digital cinemas have increased with an average of 25-30% in the
last one and half years.
Having started the first commercial digital cinema chain in Europe Peter
Wester left FHP according to contract. During these years he was also invited as
a popular spokesperson to many international conferences presenting the Digital
Cinema subject. Today, Peter Wester is the owner of Publiq Entertainment AB, a
Video on Demand Company distributing digital content to households, schools and
Digital Houses via broadband.
XDC SA has recently retained Peter Wester to be part of the XDC efforts in
Sweden. He is responsible for the introduction of XDC to the local film
industry; informing cinema owners and local producers as well as distributors.
His mission also includes the negotiations of contracts between XDC and cinema
owners as well as the infrastructure set up and the communication between the
parties. Among others, he’s also contributing to the roll out planning together
with local integrator. As soon as the network will be ready, Peter will also
organize formalities for a secure distribution of digital content being the
contact person with distributors. He will also be in charge of supervising
digital cinemas in the early ages, making sure they get the appropriate answer
to their daily operation questions.
“With EVS Digital Cinema, we have had the pleasure of following Peter Wester
digital journey since he started at FHP”, says Bernard Collard, General Manager
of XDC. “Some of the first mistakes, we made together, but we could also present
the first brilliant results after some years. Peter Wester is a “doer” and we
feel confident in taking part of his long experience and co-operating in
Sweden.”
