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EFE CAKAREL Efe Cakarel, founder and CEO of subscription film streaming service MUBI, is determined to deliver the best of independent cinema to the world. We spoke to the Turkish entrepreneur over lunch at Little Social in London WORDS: GARETH REES imAGES: REBECCA REES
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I love this place,” says Efe Cakarel, sliding into a red leather booth at Little Social, British chef and restaurateur Jason Atherton’s busy bistro on Pollen Street in London’s Mayfair. Slender, dressed in a white T-shirt and a sky blue cashmere jumper, the founder and CEO of “online cinema” MUBI has dark floppy hair, round black spectacles and a big, genuine smile across his lightly stubbled face. The Turkish entrepreneur is referring to his chosen meeting place, of course, but the 40-year-old’s enthusiasm
is not restricted to restaurants. He is no hard-nosed businessman – he’s happy, and he’s not afraid to show it. Cakarel has good reason to smile. MUBI (formerly known as The Auteurs), the streaming service he founded in Palo Alto, California, in 2007, and now runs from a townhouse just off nearby Carnaby Street, has grown from a niche site screening “auteur-driven, foreign, arthouse classics” for a small audience of film fanatics to the place for more than seven million registered users to get their daily
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