Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín are positioning Pijama as a solution to one of cinema's most persistent problems—giving orphaned films a fighting chance at global audiences. Their platform offers producers 80% revenue shares, non-exclusive deals that don't conflict with existing arrangements, and direct access to viewers in territories where their work might otherwise gather dust.
Insiders note the timing is deliberate: Pijama's Cannes presence comes as sales agents face mounting pressure from shrinking theatrical markets. One source close to the situation says major players are watching to see if the Larraín brothers can actually deliver on their promise of worldwide access without cannibalizing existing deals.
Pijama launched January 25, 2026 with 25 Fabula titles; expanded to iOS and Android in April, then Roku, FireTV, LG and Samsung by mid-May. As of May 10, the platform offered just over 100 films after adding 20 titles in a single day last week. The platform will sign deals with two broadcasters next week, per Juan de Dios Larraín.
The Larraín brothers aren't just building another streaming service—they're betting that Hollywood's distribution gap is a feature, not a bug. If Pijama can convince skeptical sales agents and producers to upload their gems directly, this could become the indie film world's answer to a very real problem.
Pablo Larraín has spent years crafting intimate portraits of iconic women—Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Maria Callas—and now he's turned his attention to fixing what's broken in film distribution. The Chilean director and his brother Juan de Dios have launched Pijama, a transaction-based video-on-demand platform that just secured its first major commercial partnerships with six sales agents including MK2, Alpha Violet, Visit Films, Les Films du Losange, Electric Shadow, and Utopia Films.
The timing couldn't be more strategic. With the Cannes Film Festival in full swing, Pijama is positioning itself as a lifeline for the 80% of films that never find worldwide distribution. "Just because a film doesn't have distribution doesn't mean it doesn't have an audience, however little it may be," Juan de Dios Larraín told Variety.
The platform's initial offerings read like a masterclass in overlooked cinema: from MK2 come Mike Leigh's Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Secrets and Lies," Sally Potter's "Orlando," Krzysztof Kieślowski's "The Double Life of Veronique," and Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher"—films that audiences simply cannot watch now in various parts of the world. Pijama's genesis came from frustration. Sebastián Lelio's Cannes premiere title "The Wave" never closed a distribution deal in the United Kingdom, which prompted the Larraín brothers to search for alternatives.
"We couldn't believe it," Juan de Dios recalled. "So we looked for some system which would allow access to the film—TVOD, VOD, whatever—and we just couldn't find one. We couldn't believe that in the year 2025 there wasn't any system which allowed a producer to upload his film directly, select a territory, fix a rental price, and make the film available." Their response was essentially: if no one else will build it, they would.
The platform operates on a curated model, aiming for roughly 100 to 200 films at any given time, drawn from approximately ten sales agents plus select producers and distributors. Producers retain 80% of revenues—a significant incentive compared to traditional distribution deals that can eat into profits with opaque accounting. The service launched January 25 as a website with 25 titles from Fabula's back catalog, expanded to iOS and Android in April, and added Roku, FireTV, LG and Samsung platforms by mid-May.
As of May 10, Pijama offered just over 100 films after adding 20 titles in a single day the previous week. The platform also boasts 24 titles from Fabula itself, including Pablo Larraín's "Neruda"—which many consider one of his finest works—and "A Fantastic Woman," which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Alpha Violet contributes festival favorites like Laurynas Bareišä's "Drowning Dry" and Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's "The Tribe." Even more remarkably, 2023 Palme d'Or winner "Anatomy of a Fall"—which also won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay—is available on Pijama in regions like Africa and Australasia where rights have lapsed.
Juan de Dios confirmed that Pijama will sign deals with two broadcasters next week. Pijama executive Yira Vilaro is representing the platform at Cannes, while Juan de Dios Larraín plans to attend Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Toronto, San Sebastián, and Cairo throughout the year. "Sales agents have the same problem," Larraín noted.
"They want to be able to say to their clients that their films can be seen worldwide." The company will launch two marketing campaigns—one targeting producers, another aimed at users in late May and June—before evaluating next steps. "It could take time for us to reach a large critical mass of films and users," Larraín acknowledged, "but I have no doubt we're going to get there."
