Is Mubi Really Worth $1 Billion?

Mubi, the upstart indie film company that made “The Substance” into an Oscar sensation, traces its origins to Tokyo on New Year’s Eve 2006, when Efe Cakarel, then a vacationing Turkish-born film fanatic, couldn’t find a copy of Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love” on any video store shelf. Frustrated, he imagined a website from which indie movie lovers like himself could stream the best films from international auteurs. He started writing the business plan for Mubi on the flight back from Japan to San Francisco, seeing it as an edgier, artsier alternative to Netflix. “I hadn’t been to a film school,” Cakarel, 49, says. “I’d never been to a film festival. I knew nobody. I just had this idea of creating a cinephile’s dream.”