I’ve got a guy in Melbourne who gets me the good stuff. Or perhaps “good” isn’t the best word; maybe “rare” is better. He’s the person I go to with titles of Australian films that never got a release on DVD or video and can’t be purchased online. I don’t know how he finds them and I don’t ask any questions.



This modern-day Santa figure introduced me to the lofty highs of the 1992 Hey Hey It’s Saturday! telemovie Silence of the Hams, starring Daryl Somers as a hardboiled detective and Red Symons as a Chinese villain (you read that right) complete with Fu Manchu moustache. If pressed, my movie dealer talks modestly about his collection – “I don’t have everything,” he’ll say – but it’s clear he has one hell of a library.



Ozflix, the world’s first streaming provider to offer only Australian films, officially launched on Thursday. In a sense, the pay-per-view platform is the antithesis of my obscure movies dealer: its selection is poor but it says it has everything.



The company’s official motto is “Every Aussie movie. Ever” – a bizarre choice of words given that it launched with just 200-odd titles. Ozflix has announced it will expand its library over time but even then the objective of obtaining every Australian film in existence is pretty much impossible.



There are several reasons for this, including issues surrounding rights and availability. And that’s before we even start considering ultra-esoteric stuff like Silence of the Hams that nobody – not even their creators – tends to care about.



But, hey, given the terrible underfunding of the National Film and Sound Archive, which has taken to crowdfunding to boost its coffers, one can hardly condemn Ozflix for entertaining such ambitions.



One of the platform’s commendable features is its decision to hand 50% of all sales to the distributor or film-maker. Film-makers successful in securing major distribution probably won’t notice the difference, but for pauperised artists whose work may have fallen through the cracks, it is a significant incentive.



Hopefully Ozflix will fill some of those gaps. It is preposterous – to use only one example – that Australians have been unable to legally obtain a copy of the 2015 Queensland-made black comedy The Suicide Theory. In the US you could see it at the cinema, buy a copy of the DVD from Walmart or stream it on Netflix. None of those options were – or are – available for the people in its home country.



Mad Max: Fury Road costs less on Ozflix than iTunes but some older films cost more. Photograph: Jasin Boland/AP/Warner Bros

The size of the cut given to artists and rights holders is not, of course, something the general public give a flying fig about – certainly not if it means they have to pay more for their movies. Fortunately this is not necessarily the case. Ozflix has two prices: $6.79 for new releases and $3.79 for everything else.



Renting Mad Max: Fury Road will set you back $3.79. iTunes offers the same film for $6.99 and Google Play for $5.99. In this case, the new kid on the block presents a substantial saving.



For other films it is less competitive. Ozflix’s “new stuff” section is populated by titles just added to the service rather than new releases per se, which means users are sometimes required to pay a higher price for old content. The 2007 creature feature Black Water is $6.79 to rent on Ozflix, versus $3.99 on iTunes and Google Play.



The general public are likely to find that price, for a decade-old film, a bit steep – though they have never been reasonable on such matters. The same people who fork out eight bucks at a pub for a glass of white that tastes like cat piss will squawk about how $5 is too much to pay for two hours of entertainment.



One of the challenges Ozflix faces is how to “sell the sizzle” of Australian film in ways that don’t reflect the cultural cringe-induced idea that our cinema is a “little industry that could”. Thus the introduction of some original content to the platform: a small range of programs that highlight different titles in the catalogue.



Ozflix is unlikely to sell the sizzle, or sell anything at all, in its flagship program, FAQ, which is essentially a long sit-down with key talent. The first episode is an hour and a half conversation with John Jarratt. It begins like a live-action adaptation of an IMDb page, the host rattling off a long list of titles the actor has worked on with no commentary other than the year of release and the name of the director. This goes on for almost three minutes.



Audiences no longer have that kind of patience; certainly not online. There are also some technical bugs. When I tried to reload FAQ it wouldn’t play on my desktop computer (“the device or the screen does not support content protection”), nor did it work on my tablet. Some teething issues, however, are surely inevitable with this kind of service. Other than these glitches, the user experience was pretty good and the interface uncluttered and Netflix-y.



With time Ozflix could become highly valuable, particularly if it is able to showcase work unavailable elsewhere. Here’s hoping the platform builds a library comparable to my guy in Melbourne. Who knows: the Silence of the Hams might one day return to our screens.

