cannes – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Netflix Bows Out Of Cannes After Festival Tells Streaming Services To Get Off Its Lawn

from the relics-of-a-bygone-era dept

Last month, the folks running the Cannes film festival had a little toddler moment, when they declared that streaming services like Netflix wouldn’t be allowed to win the Palme d?Or. More specifically, Cannes boss Thierry Fremaux stated that streaming services wouldn’t be allowed to win any awards if they didn’t adhere to outdated French film industry release windows. Such windows are increasingly archaic, but the release windows required by France’s cultural exception law are particularly obnoxious, requiring a 36-month delay between theatrical release and streaming availability.

Cannes couldn’t just come out and admit it was having a “damn kids get the hell off my lawn moment,” so it tried to peddle a bunch of nonsense about how this was all about ensuring high festival standards. That, of course, ignores the fact that while Netflix pushes a lot of streaming crap, streaming services in general are increasingly winning both television and film awards. It also ignores the fact that Cannes is trying to dress protectionism up as something more noble than it actually is. Or, that bad streaming content wouldn’t be considered for awards anyway.

In response, Netflix has now stated that the company will be avoiding Cannes entirely, Netflix Chief Content Office Ted Sarandos stating the company will be taking its ball and going home:

“We want our films to be on fair ground with every other filmmaker,? Sarandos says. ?There?s a risk in us going in this way and having our films and filmmakers treated disrespectfully at the festival. They?ve set the tone. I don?t think it would be good for us to be there.”

In a subsequent interview, Sarandos says Netflix learned of its ouster from the media, and was quick to point out that Cannes is really only making itself look stupid here:

“We hope that they do change the rules. We hope that they modernize. But we will continue to support all films and all filmmakers. We encourage Cannes to rejoin the world cinema community and welcome them back. Thierry had said in his comments when he announced his change that the history of the Internet and the history of Cannes are two different things. Of course they are two different things. But we are choosing to be about the future of cinema. If Cannes is choosing to be stuck in the history of cinema, that?s fine.”

It’s all really just another stupid example of how folks love to try to dress up counterproductive protectionism, stubbornness and resistance to natural evolution as some kind of more elaborate ethos. And how countless people, companies and organizations believe they can somehow thwart disruptive technology to try and roll back the clock to the way things used to be. Of course as Techdirt readers are very much aware, that never tends to work out particularly well.

Filed Under: cannes, movie industry, streaming, thierry fremaux
Companies: netflix

Cannes Bans Netflix Films From Competition Because The Internet Is Bad (Or Something)

from the get-off-my-lawn dept

Mon, Mar 26th 2018 10:45am - Karl Bode

Cannes this week declared that the long-running festival would be banning streaming services like Netflix from being able to win the Palme d?Or. That said, festival leaders weren’t able to offer a coherent reason why. Festival boss Thierry Fremaux apparently tried to offer something vaguely resembling an explanation to a variety of different news outlets, but wasn’t particularly successful. Most of the arguments made by Fremaux to the press had something to do with Netflix being different (gasp) from the traditional film industry production and criticism model:

“The Netflix people loved the red carpet and would like to be present with other films. But they understand that the intransigence of their own model is now the opposite of ours,? Thierry Fremaux said.”

The heart of the ban appears to be a fusion of protectionist concerns about how streaming could harm the traditional French film industry and brick-and-mortar theaters (aka: fear of competition). France has a cultural exception law that requires a percentage of all box office, TV and streaming revenues be used to finance homegrown and foreign films. That law also forces a very outdated and obnoxious release window: namely a 36-month delay between theatrical release and streaming availability. Streaming providers’ disdain for such artificial and arbitrary restrictions has been ruffling feathers for years.

In other words, this is really just the same old story about people making silly decisions because of fear of something new disrupting legacy business models that may not work as well in the modern era. But because Cannes just can’t come out and admit that, we instead got a heavy dose of disdain for the internet in general:

“Fremaux said the while new players like Netflix and Amazon are enabling directors to make big budget films, they are creating ?hybrids? that aren?t TV and aren’t quite film. ?Cinema [still] triumphs everywhere even in this golden age of series,? he said. ?The history of cinema and the history of the internet are two different things.”

It’s 2018 and that’s not entirely true anymore but who cares, get off my lawn!

Cannes has previously banned made for TV movies to ensure a certain quality bar in competition. The organization appears to be using that ban to justify banning Netflix, despite the fact that Netflix is now spending billions on producing its in-house, award winning fare. Because many of these films only saw limited runs in theaters (or no run at all) doesn’t automatically equate to low quality, and banning streaming services from awards isn’t likely to magically save an industry unwilling to evolve.

Of course this disdain for all things new isn’t solely a French phenomenon. Stephen Spielberg recently stated that Netflix films shouldn’t be allowed to win Oscar awards, though here too you’ll notice that the justifications are arguably flimsy, with an attempt to equate “streaming” with inevitably low quality:

“Once you commit to a television format, you?re a TV movie,? he told ITV News. ?You certainly, if it?s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don?t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

Why not? Who knows! If the content is awful it will get rejected from such competitions anyway. And trying to fend off streaming at this point is like trying to slow the flow of a river with just your hands. The move is pretty clearly an effort by Fremaux to project a certain standard of excellence (he also announced that selfies would be banned at this year’s festival), but the message it’s actually sending the world is more of the “I’m a Luddite” variety.

Filed Under: cannes, competition, disruption, films, innovation, movies, protectionism, streaming, thierry fremaux
Companies: cannes film festival, netflix

French Theater Owners Freak Out; Get Netflix Booted From Cannes Film Festival

from the competing-isn't-really-the-French-way dept

Even as Netflix continues to draw top talent to produce original series and movies (while failing to destroy the motion picture industry), it is still being locked out of being considered a “real” filmmaker.

The tentative embrace of streaming services’ offerings comes with caveats: films must be released to theaters as well to be considered for major awards. This makes things considerably tougher for Netflix since it’s faced heavy resistance from theater owners and others who see a lack of release windows as a threat to their existence.

The latest rejection of Netflix’s advances is happening at France’s Cannes Film Festival. Netflix has two films up for consideration for this year’s awards, but according to festival organizers, it will be its last unless something changes. Here’s the festival’s official flip-flop, via David Canfield at Slate:

A rumor has recently spread about a possible exclusion of the Official Selection of Noah Baumbach and Bong Joon-Ho whose films have been largely financed by Netflix. The Festival de Cannes does reiterate that, as announced on April 13th, these two films will be presented in Official Selection and in Competition.

The Festival de Cannes is aware of the anxiety aroused by the absence of the release in theaters of those films in France. The Festival de Cannes asked Netflix in vain to accept that these two films could reach the audience of French movie theaters and not only its subscribers. Hence the Festival regrets that no agreement has been reached.

The issue here appears to be French theater owners, although the statement doesn’t say that in as many words. Instead, the festival delivers a whole lot of words on a platter of subtext.

The Festival is pleased to welcome a new operator which has decided to invest in cinema but wants to reiterate its support to the traditional mode of exhibition of cinema in France and in the world. Consequently, and after consulting its Members of the Board, the Festival de Cannes has decided to adapt its rules to this unseen situation until now: Any film that wishes to compete in Competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theaters. This new measure will apply from the 2018 edition of the Festival International du Film de Cannes onwards.

To translate this, one needs to look at the events leading up to the festival’s sudden reversal. The festival doesn’t want to lose local support, so it has allowed itself to be bullied into a hasty invitation retraction. This report from CBC News is the explicit version of the statement’s implicit wording.

The [Netflix] selections prompted immediate criticism from French exhibitors. In France, the theatrical experience is passionately defended. Films are prohibited from streaming or appearing on subscription video on demand for three years after playing in theatres.

On Tuesday, France’s National Federation of Films Distributors said the Netflix films at Cannes were “endangering a whole ecosystem.”

Must be a pretty fragile ecosystem if a streaming service being considered for an award threatens its stability. And — considering the three-year no-streaming window French citizens are punished with — it’s easy to see why Netflix hasn’t reached an agreement with the locals. It’s also easy to see Netflix will never be able to reach an agreement with French exhibitors. One side has a whole lot of room for compromise, but if it hasn’t done so already during the rise of streaming services, it’s unlikely to start making concessions now.

So, there will be no Palme d’Ors in the Netflix trophy case. And this nation’s creative industries will continue to prop themselves up on insular, isolationist laws, rather than face the rest of the world head-on.

Filed Under: cannes, films, france, streaming
Companies: netflix