Cannes’ war on Netflix heats up
Palme d’Or jury president says films available exclusively online shouldn’t qualify for the award
CANNES, FRANCE— The war of big vs. small movie screens at the Cannes Film Festival heated up Wednesday as Palme d’Or jury president Pedro Almodovar declared that prizes shouldn’t be given to online-only films.
“I personally would not conceive not only the Palme d’Or but any other prize being given to a film and then not being able to see this film on the large screen,” the veteran Spanish filmmaker told an in- ternational press audience on the festival’s opening day.
Calling it “the debate of this year,” Almodovar was clearly referring to the two Netflix films among the 19 competing for the Palme: Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi fantasy Okja, starring Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal; and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories, a dysfunctional-family drama starring Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller.
Online giant Netflix has caused a furor in Cannes for refusing to commit to a traditional theatrical release in France of the Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories prior to online distribution.
Cannes has fought back by saying Netflix, which is in the Palme competition for the first time this year, won’t be allowed into the 2018 festival unless it changes its policy.
Almodovar obviously sides with the festival, but his statement, read out in Spanish, English and French, was highly unusual given his leading role on the nine-member jury. The other jurors are Hollywood actors Will Smith and Jessica Chastain, German writer/director Maren Ade ( Toni Erdmann); Chinese actress Fan Bingbing ( X-Men: Days of Future Past); French actress/singer/ filmmaker Agnès Jaoui ( The Taste of Others); South Korean writer/director Park Chan-wook ( Oldboy); Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino ( The Great Beauty); and FrenchLebanese composer Gabriel Yared (Canadian Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World).
Normally, the jurors and their president go out of their way at the start of Cannes to declare their impartiality regarding the films they will be viewing and judging over the 12-day festival.
Almodovar obviously thinks the battle to preserve big-screen dominance is too important to ignore, even if it effectively suggest that Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories now have little chance of winning the Palme at festival’s end on May 28, no matter how much the jury may like them.
He said he’s willing to “acknowledge (and) celebrate the new technologies and the possibilities that they offer to us,” but he’ll stop short of giving them prizes if they result in films destined only to appear on TV and computer screens.
“I do acknowledge them, but (as long) as I’m alive, I’ll be fighting for one thing that I’m afraid the new generation is not aware of: the capacity of hypnosis of the large
“(Netflix) has broadened my children’s global cinematic comprehension.” WILL SMITH ACTOR, PALME D’OR JURY MEMBER
screen for the viewer.”
Almodovar’s attack on Netflix caused some discomfort for actor Smith, sitting near him. His new film Bright, a fantasy cop thriller co-starring Noomi Rapace, is scheduled for a Netflix-only release in December.
Smith rose to the defence of Netflix, saying he uses the service at home and his family also enjoy regular visits to movie theatres.
“I have a 16-year-old and an 18year-old and a 24-year-old at home. They go to the movies twice a week, and they watch Netflix. There’s very little cross between going to the cinema and watching what they watch on Netflix.”
Netflix allows Smith’s children to “watch films they otherwise wouldn’t have seen. It has broadened my children’s global cinematic comprehension.”
Smith was an unusual pick for the Cannes jury, given his career as one of the world’s biggest stars, which normally lands him in blockbusters like Men in Black, Bad Boys and last year’s summer hit Suicide Squad rather than artier fare.
He joked about how he’s excited about being on the Cannes jury, and he intends to watch closely and learn from the experience.
Smith admitted, though, to being shocked when his agent told him he’d have to watch three films per day for the better part of two weeks, with screenings beginning as early as 8:30 a.m. each day.
“I was probably 14 years old the last time I watched three movies in a day,” he said.