The Project
New Day Films is a filmmaker-owned cooperative founded in 1971 that distributes educational documentary films to institutions, libraries, and community organizations worldwide. Their collection includes Academy Award winners and Emmy recipients. The co-op needed to transform its outdated website, built for selling DVDs, into a modern, unified platform that supports both streaming and sales.
Kalamuna helped create a solution that consolidates content management and e-commerce, with sophisticated licensing and authentication systems. The new platform successfully modernized New Day's digital presence, streamlined its operations, and provided the technical foundation needed to compete with other major educational film distributors.
For decades, New Day Films has been a unique voice in educational documentaries, operating as a filmmaker-owned cooperative where independent documentarians collectively own and operate their distribution channel. The move toward streaming, however, presented a unique challenge. Unlike a typical streaming service, New Day's platform required film licensing with multiple price points, various streaming license durations, and sophisticated access control for institutional users. Additionally, individual filmmakers needed their own dashboards to manage pricing and create promotional codes for their films.
We helped New Day meet its goals with a unified platform that could handle its complex business model while providing an accessible experience that modern streaming customers expect.
It had been a decade since the last full redesign. Since New Day was now competing with giants like Netflix and Kanopy, the stakes were high. They needed a fresh and modern site that made an immediate visual impact.
Because they are a member-owned cooperative, every major design decision required consensus among over 100 filmmakers. We also needed to ensure equitable representation of their diverse membership and thoughtfully showcase a deep archive of films spanning over fifty years and forty-six subject areas. Balancing these requirements demanded careful consideration at every step of the design process, with accessibility being paramount throughout.
We presented design concepts to the entire membership at annual member meetings, garnering rave reviews and generating passionate discussion. The consensus was to support both light and dark modes on the website, presenting a professional and cinematic aesthetic that also gives users control over their experience.
Structured content creates meaningful connections between films, filmmakers, and academic subjects, making it easier for users to discover relevant content. Film pages now feature collections of related documentaries organized by shared subject areas, encouraging exploration of New Day's extensive catalog. Cross-selling opportunities and purchase recommendations are simple to manage.
No existing third-party platform could handle New Day’s complex licensing and authentication requirements. Beyond the usual expectations of a video streaming platform, we needed to support IP address authentication for campus users, proxy server integration for libraries, and email domain verification. We also needed to support a variety of licensing durations (14-day, 1-year, 3-year, and lifetime).
The result was a full-featured streaming marketplace, built from the ground up. Videos are stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and loaded for users after checking for a valid license. Customers can see their viewing progress for all purchased films. Filmmakers can see viewership analytics and offer their own targeted discounts to schools, fundraisers, or other specific audiences.
While Kalamuna brought deep knowledge of New Day's existing system and requirements, Centarro provided the Drupal Commerce expertise required to implement the business logic surrounding e-commerce and digital licenses. The partnership enabled platform consolidation that went beyond simply upgrading to the latest version of Drupal. It created a unified experience where users can discover films, make purchases, and access their streaming content while reducing hosting costs and simplifying maintenance.
I really enjoy how much Kalamuna folks talk about New Day using ‘we.’ Sometimes it's literally that word, and other times it's just in the manner that they talk about the work. As a cooperative, we cherish a sense of ‘we,’ and it's so cool to have that part of our work so understood and for Kalamuna team members to feel and work that way.
Cheryl Green
Digital Operations Lead, New Day
Together with New Day Films and Centarro, Kalamuna created a comprehensive digital platform that honors the cooperative's collaborative values while providing the technical sophistication needed to compete. The platform empowers independent filmmakers with flexible licensing, integration of content and commerce, and a solid streaming experience.