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CANNES, France – Call it elephant in the room.
After a two-year controversy during which the absence of Netflix films in the Cannes Film Festival attracted almost as much attention as the titles actually programmed, the festival's director, Thierry Frémaux, succeeded Monday to spend an entire session with the press be asked a single question about the streaming service.
Then, at a press conference Tuesday afternoon with the jurors who chose the winner of the Palme d'Or, the president of the jury, Alejandro González Iñárritu, evoked it himself.
"I always ask how many films we will see over the next 10 days will be exposed to the world, especially in Mexico, where there are few art cinemas?" Said Iñárritu, pointing out that Netflix could provide a more robust form of global distribution.
"Netflix did a great job because they capitalized on the lack of these films," said Iñárritu. "Why not give people the choice to experience the cinema?"
The advent of streaming movies has met fierce opposition from exhibitors in France, where the law dictates a period of 36 months between screenings in theaters and in broadcast. From the Netflix titles "Okja" and "The Stories of Meyerowitz (news and selected)" played in Cannes two years ago, these exhibitors managed to put pressure on the festival and Fremaux to give Netflix the cold shoulder. Last year, Netflix films available in Cannes, such as Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma", were excluded from the competition. Netflix claimed not to have any films ready for this year's edition. (The show's drama Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman," is only expected later in the year.)
However, given the influx of crowded streamers, Apple, which will soon unveil its own content in streaming, seems to promise a compromise, sitting in the next film director Sofia Coppola. Frémaux would also prefer not to lose more prestigious films like "Roma", which was presented at the Venice Film Festival last year.
"What's really at stake is the way we watch the movies," said Iñárritu, who called the filming of community-based film, but said, "I have nothing against watching on a phone, an iPad or a computer.
"One should not cancel the other," he added.
Two-time Oscar winner Iñárritu will preside over a jury made up of actress Elle Fanning, one of the best directors, including recent Oscar nominees Yorgos Lanthimos and Paweł Pawlikowski, as well as Kelly Reichardt and Alice Rohrwacher. .
"It's the first time I do not try to disengage myself from the role of juror," joked Reichardt, although she lamented the fact that the media inevitably focus on her sex: "I look forward to a time when we will not have to say" women directors "or" as a woman ".
Nevertheless, the presence of women in the Cannes competition is perhaps the second concern behind Netflix: only three female directors participated in the competition this year, a number that has not increased in the last three years. Jane Campion remains the only director in Cannes history to win the Palme d'Or, for "The piano" in 1993.
"People keep asking us what it's like to be a filmmaker," said Rohrwacher, who was competing last year with "Happy as Lazzaro". Instead of asking women, she suggested that journalists interview people with real power: producers, managers and financiers.
"It's like asking someone who survived a shipwreck why she's still alive," Rohrwacher said. "Well, ask the person who built the boat."
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