A cinema for movies that have no other home.
Scheduled screenings of independent movies, AI-made features, and documentaries, inside your VR headset, with a real audience, at a set time.
What makes this different
Not streaming. Not a watch party. A cinema.
The best seat in the house. Every time.
In a physical cinema your seat determines your experience. In CONTRABAND, when the movie starts the room fades away and the screen fills your entire field of view. No bad angles. Nobody tall sitting in front of you. Every seat is the same seat.
Every film, in depth.
Most films weren't shot in 3D. With the filmmaker's approval, we convert select titles into true stereoscopic 3D, so a film you've already seen flat can reveal a dimension you haven't seen before.
You are not watching alone.
The room holds real people. You cannot see their faces. There are no avatars. But you can hear them. Someone laughs two rows back. The room goes quiet at exactly the right moment. That sound, the sound of a crowd absorbed in the same thing, is what makes cinema feel different from watching something at home. CONTRABAND brings it back.
It happens at a set time, for everyone.
The movie starts at 8pm. So does everyone else. Nobody pauses it. Nobody skips ahead. The experience is shared in time as well as space, which is what turns watching into an event. That communal moment is what streaming took away and what CONTRABAND gives back.
Movies that deserve to be seen.
Every movie on CONTRABAND was selected by our community. Independent features, AI-made work, documentaries that got passed over by traditional distribution. No other home, until now.
How it works
Three steps to a seat.
Sign up.
Create your account on our website. You will see upcoming screenings and get notified when new movies are announced.
Book.
Find a screening and buy a ticket. Community screenings are complimentary; public screenings are ticketed. You can also book seats for guests, you'll receive a code to pass along for them to enter at the gate.
Watch.
Open Contraband VR on your Quest 2, 3, 3S, or Pro and log in. Your upcoming screenings appear on your panel. Guests enter your code when prompted.
When the movie ends you vote. Those votes decide what screens next.
The cinema outing used to be a Friday night plan. Getting ready, driving somewhere, sitting in the dark with strangers, watching something that moved you.
That ritual has been eroding. Costs too much. Too far to drive. The screens are taken by movies that do not need them, and the ones you actually want to see never made it to your city.
CONTRABAND is our answer to that.Not a replacement for cinema. A new kind of it.
Early access
AdmitOneWe are building our founding audience now.
Join our founding audience and help shape what CONTRABAND becomes.
- Access to Community Screenings — complimentary for First100 members
- A vote on what CONTRABAND shows next
- A seat at the table as a First100 member
