Cannes bans Netflix films
Come May, two things will be missing from this year’s Cannes Film Festival: films from streaming services and red-carpet selfies.
In an interview with French magazine Le Film Français on Friday, festival director Thierry Frémaux announced changes to the prestigious event, which is in its 71st year and will run from May 8 to 19.
Shaking things up, Frémaux declared that films from Netflix and other streaming services would not be eligible to compete for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest prize.
Last year, two Netflix films — Joon-ho Bong ’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories — were allowed in the competition, a decision that Frémaux said “created an enormous controversy that has echoed around the globe.”
The disagreement stem med from conflict between Netflix wanting to debut films on its streaming service and a law known as French cultural exception, which has specific requirements for when films can move from theatres to other platforms like video-on-demand, television and streaming.
“Last year, when we selected these two films, I thought I could convince Netflix to release them in theatres,” Frémaux told Le Film Français. “I was presumptuous: they refused.”
For the 2017 festival, Netflix tried to get temporary permits to screen the films for less than a week in France, allowing for a dayand-date release so they could be seen in theatres and online at the same time, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But this move clashed with the French law, which mandates a 36-month delay between a movie’s theatrical release and streaming date, The New York Times reported.
“The festival asked Netflix in vain to accept that these two films could reach the audience of French movie theatres and not only its subscribers,” according to a statement from the festival to the New York Times in 2017. “Hence the Festival regrets that no agreement has been reached.”
In response to the widespread backlash, Cannes announced last year that it would change its rules to require future competition films to commit to distribution in French movie theatres, The New York Times reported.
The rule change did not apply to Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories, but neither film won any awards.
Although the new rule effectively bans Netflix and other streaming services from entering their films in the competition, Frémaux said the films can still be selected to be shown at the festival.
In the interview with Le Film Français, Frémaux also announced that no selfies would be allowed on the red carpet.
Frémaux told Le Film Français that the decision was jointly made by him and the festival’s president, Pierre Lescure.
“At the top of the red carpet, the pettiness and the hold up caused by the untimely disorder created by taking selfies hurts the quality of the climbing of the steps,” Frémaux said. “... And it does the same to the festival as a whole.”
The Washington Post
With files from Derek Hawkins