Slashdot Mirror
Netflix Banned From Competing At Cannes Film Festival Due To Lack of Theatrical Releases (theverge.com)
Netflix has been banned from competing in the Cannes Film Festival, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. "Theirry Fremaux, the head of Cannes, told THR last week the ban is because Netflix refuses to release its films in theaters, choosing instead to debut them on its streaming service and, in some rare cases, do day-and-date releases so the film can be seen both online and off," reports The Verge. From the report: In the case of Bong Joon-ho's Okja and Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories -- films that were entered into last year's Cannes to widespread protest from French filmmakers -- Netflix was unable to secure last-minute permits for one-week theatrical releases due to French media regulations. "Last year, when we selected these two films, I thought I could convince Netflix to release them in cinemas. I was presumptuous, they refused," Fremaux told THR. "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." Starting with this year's Cannes, which takes place in May, films screened in competition will need to have a French theatrical release. Netflix is still allowed to show films at Cannes, Fremaux added, but its films will not be eligible for the prestigious Palme d'Or.
If I were Netflix I would use the very large amount of money it has, to go in with Amazon to make a second Cannes that accepts the world as it is (maybe call it "Jarres"), and let Cannes as it is now fade into irrelevancy. Do you think stars would be more, or less likely to go to something sponsored by Netflix and Amazon?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd say that most movie houses aren't actually theaters either.
From Wikipedia
Theatre or theater[1] is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage.
And My Home Viewing Setup is better than any movie house from 50 years ago (Except maybe the Real Buttered Popcorn)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It's like professional sports in the Olympics.
The best players in the world don't complete in the Olympic games because their professional careers don't give them the opportunity.
So the gold medal winners aren't really top of their sport, they're top of the group who doesn't have a high paying professional contract.
Let's have a look at the fuckometer and see how many fucks we give....
.\........
Well, that's not many fucks at all.
Cannes is pretty much just a big virtue signal fest and seeing off Netflix is about par for the course. I'm pretty sure this problem isn't going to dominate the next Netflix board meeting while they're trying to figure out what to do with their $560 million in profits.
Agreed, I have never gone to a movie because it was at the Cannes. In fact, it's a reason _NOT_ to go to it.
TFA is terrible at explaining this, but the reason Netflix can't enter Cannes is because their movies haven't been in French cinemas, and the reason their movies haven't been in French cinemas is because it's illegal to to show movies inside and outside cinemas at the same time: http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris...
Wonder what the public key field is for?
We were all dying to know that you don't care about this article. And what better place to announce it than a message board specifically for discussing said article? Would you mind telling us about some of the other things you don't care about?
Thank you for the Interesting, Insigtful, and not-at-all Redundant post indicating your indifference.
Cannes seems to fail to recognise the irony here. Organisations like Cannes will die off because of the intransigence of the film industry and their own dated model.
Sometimes, Cannes picks genuinely good movies. Often, they just pick pretentious crap like Melancholia. On balance, an award at Cannes is more likely to be a negative than a positive.
I'm surprised they don't at least make an exception for LGBT themed movies. They eat that stuff up at Cannes. The only sure way to get raves.
If the industry didn't make such an event out of this stuff, then no one would!
The other thing is, it also shows how resistant to change the industry is. Just like they couldn't embrace the digital frontier and have had problems with piracy, even now, with streaming, which is a way to get people to pay for this stuff (i.e. not pirate) and they still don't want them in their little club. Not that I really care, but watching from the sidelines makes me think that in doing this, they're displaying a stubbornness and willingness to go down with the ship, if it comes to that.
this article is pure ignorance. it's not the france is banning netflix for not showing films in theaters. It's that cannes has always exclded films not released in france.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Cannes film festival shot in its foot, in my opinion. Netflix now just have to run the NetCannes festival, excluding films that are not available online.
Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories were OK, but they're not going to compete with any of the Cannes finalists. Netflix will just keep trying and Cannes will eventually realize that requiring a theatrical release is an artifact of a bygone era.
Personally, I think some of the mini-series on Netflix are more worthy of Cannes than those two movies, but again, Cannes doesn't understand that the world has moved on.
You are welcome on my lawn.
since they no longer use film, and it's a film festival.
Well, your eloquent presentation of your similarly derivative opinion is such a welcome change at slashdot----NOT!
It's called the Las Vegas Film Festival.
This is the world we live in today, and by ignoring modern movie distribution to pretend we're still living in the past, Cannes is only making themselves irrelevant and in the blink of an eye, the world will turn their backs and ignore the film festival.
Netflix and all the up and coming digital providers of content will face this same backlash from the existing community of studio executives and producers. They are all in bed with the theater owners so it's not a movie if it's shown outside the theater to try to disregard the new content medium.
In the end they will fail and the new big players will be the distributors and that scares the daylights out of all these old school guards that have made millions skimming the existing system by screwing over the theater owners. Ultimately they awards will enter the modern age or they will be supplanted by new awards that recognize the new market. I concur with previous posters that suggested netflix, amazon and others work together to create those new award shows and drive that old guard into the grave.
Cannes? Yesterday's news. They create and show little content so artsy fartsy with a glass of wine in their hands. They get to dress up and feel self important for perhaps another half decade before they become a past thing. Enjoy the wine.
Netflix? Much content. In time an 'Online award system will arise.' Netflix is making money where many short and independents aren't.
Apparently Amazon is playing the game, at least in the USA, because I've seen a couple of Amazon produced-or-at-least-distributed movies in theaters. (With MoviePass, of course.) For example, The Big Sick.
Cannes just kissed their small sliver of relevancy goodbye.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
It competed at Indy in 1968 and lapped the entire field before crapping out right at the end with a minor mechanical problem. But because all the pricey Offenhausers driving the other Indy cars immediately became obsolete, the official response was to ban turbines at Indy in future years. That was the moment when the US yielded world domination of automotive technology to Asia.
Cannes used to be one of the great festivals for indy films. This decision makes it the Indy of the film world.
Yeah I thought it was a film festival... About films. Didn't realize it was a movie theater profit festival.
You're saying French people don't get Netflix ? Or what does "release" mean?
Do you ? Do you even know anyone who does ? Do they ?
The number of awards $show has been nominated for, how many A list actors are in it or the fact it was featured in some obscure film festival that few outside of the entertainment business even know about has zero impact on my decision to watch material X vs material Y.
IMO, this is the industry doing everything it possibly can to discredit the newcomer in a last ditch effort before the inevitable happens.
Dear Industry: You either evolve with the times, or you go extinct. Simple as that really.
This is how it's been for real movie companies too, even when their primary intent is to do a TV movie or home video release. If they want to be considered for various awards, they have to put the goddamn thing in actual theaters enough to qualify.
This has been going on for decades.
Sig for hire.
Not that I care a lot, but I certainly care more about Cannes than say Oscars..
So... Netflix has been canned from the festival?
Most piracy is all about access to releases. If you live the wrong place you are discriminated against when it comes to legal access to movies, tv-shows and music. Pirates have long ago stepped up to fill this gap. The only valid path is to release globally on all forms of media every single time. The cinemas then would need to wake up and devise a concept people would want to pay extra for - sound, picture, environment... Upgrade the hard gun-filled seats and the overpriced popcorn and be vigilant so that noisy guests (talking, on the phone etc.) are kicked out immedately.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Shhhh! Emperor. Clothes. You know.
... Movie theaters.
The movies are released on the french version of netflix.
I'm not sure what the issue is - an organisation that exists to support cinema is refusing to support a different organisation that is committed to undermining cinema (by "cinema" I mean the physical act of going to see a movie on a big screen in a publicly accessible building). Why *should* they support that any more than they allow oil paintings or books to enter?
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
it's not the france is banning netflix for not showing films in theaters. It's that cannes has always exclded films not released in france.
But, Netflix cannot release in theater even if they wanted, because some weird old protectionist law make it impossible to both release online and in theater at the same time.
(The law was designed in such a way so that back in the days, movie theaters would have a window of opportunity to try to profit from a movie, before the movie got unleashed on VHS tapes. Of course it was probably presented as some crap like "movie theater should be noble place used to display art, not to serve as vile commercial to advertise VHS sold in shops").
Similar restriction also (used to) exist regarding the timing of TV releases(*) in France (again to guarantee a "right to profit" to those who released before).
And modern EU-wide laws (that also exist in France) prevents Netflix from geo-locking (They cannot block streaming of some movie to French IP addresses for the sake of France's movie theater release priorities).
So yeah, it *is* France's law that a preventing Netflix to compete in Canne due to some indirect interactions that blocks Netflix from doing what they are required to do in order to compete.
---
(*) : Which wasn't very efficient at its intended "profit-securing" purpose, because these law couldn't obviously apply to nearby countries such as Switzerland and Belgium where french is also one of the spoken language and where the movie would be released sooner on over-the-air TV that could be received in France. Much to the dismay of VHS shops in France and/or TV channel in france who would have wanted to profit from advertisement sold during movie airing.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Better let it die and create a better film festival in its place.
we rename the Cannes films Festival to Cannes Cinema Festival since it's about cinema and not movies it seems.
If a major film festival decides to ban the largest producer and distributor of film, it's pretty clear that film festival is entering its death spiral.
Shows you how with it and enlightened all those Cannes film people are with their constant onanistic tendencies.
The organization claims to be a film festival, not a cinema festival. Netflix has brought to light the lie that Cannes is about art; Cannes is actually an incestuous profit machine with no regard for art.
Oh you don't like the cable company? Oh.. that;s a shame, we're the only ones in town *rubs vag*
it's not the france is banning netflix for not showing films in theaters.
Yes it is. France has statutory release windows, which forbid a movie distributor that shows a movie in theaters in France from offering that movie for streaming on an all-you-can-eat video-on-demand service for 36 months after initial theatrical exhibition.
Would you mind telling us about some of the other things you don't care about?
Gay marriage... and, um, Pokemon.
The organization claims to be a film festival, not a cinema festival.
It started in 1939 (although it was postponed until '46) when the two were synonymous.
Netflix has brought to light the lie that Cannes is about art; Cannes is actually an incestuous profit machine with no regard for art.
Well, that sounds so unlike the well-known art charity Netflix, doesn't it? Next you'll be telling me that the Oscar for Best Film doesn't always go to the year's best film! Sorry - Oscar®.
I'm not arguing about either side's morality, just that Netflix is basically complaining that rain is wet and that the Pope grasp of bar mitzvah is lacking in detail. It's just a whine.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Because Netflix is making avant guard art. If you exclude the most interesting works than winning becomes meaningless. If winning is meaningless than ultimately nobody will pay attention anymore. If the underlayng reason for the festival was to build excitement about film to sell more tickets you cant succeed without the excitement
That film festivals are run by ... snobs ???
What ??!
Also in headlines: Could Today Be 2018's Slowest News Day?
Straight-to-streaming is the future. Big studio blockbusters will likely still be made for decades, but the artistic, independent films that Cannes used to be known for are mostly distributed by streaming.
Cannes may just very well have made itself irrelevant.
Small sliver of relevancy? Without Cannes there would have been no Pulp Fiction, nor hundreds of other classic films that used the festival as a launchpad. Cannes IS cinema. For you to say such a comment shows how little understanding you have of the movie business, or of french history and the french state's defense of the arts & artist's rights.
I bet Netflix is pulling too many people away from established hegemonies, movie theaters and TV, so the director's guild, MPAA, and other media self-obsessed organizations paid the Cannes organizers to enforce a newly invented rule that conveniently pushed out Netflix. Bully much?
I suppose they could try winning against Netflix simply by creating better movies but if they were hard-working people with strong ethics they wouldn't be in the media business.
Sad. Expected.
They can make the rules as they see fit, but sometimes, you see a disruption take place, and I personally find it amusing when the old guard are trying to maintain their status and keep the newcomers out.
The point is; netflix isn't going anywhere! If they're making the profits I've read about, and more importantly, prepared to spend money on making art films, which the industry, broadly speaking, struggles to make money on, then it comes across as incredibly petty for organisations to try to keep them out of prestigious events, however, after all, these french associations/organisations are notoriously corrupt, with so many scandals plaguing other organisations, such as FIFA, FIA, IOC, as a few examples, I'm not really surprised.
Another aspect is that these judging organisations usually develop prestige through identifying and recognising quality, and having rigorous judging. If they exclude something for more arbitrary reasons, they're only hurting their own credibility in the long term.
They can make the rules as they see fit, but sometimes, you see a disruption take place, and I personally find it amusing when the old guard are trying to maintain their status and keep the newcomers out.
The point is; netflix isn't going anywhere!,
That's what they said about Blockbusters.
If they're making the profits I've read about, and more importantly, prepared to spend money on making art films, which the industry, broadly speaking, struggles to make money on, then it comes across as incredibly petty for organisations to try to keep them out of prestigious events
I just don't see that. Netflix is making television programmes. There are television festivals they can go to. What's the problem?
however, after all, these french associations/organisations are notoriously corrupt, with so many scandals plaguing other organisations, such as FIFA, FIA, IOC, as a few examples, I'm not really surprised.
Well, okay. I guess Netflix is purer than the driven snow but it's still making TV programmes - by which I mean programmes to watch on your TV. If they want to make cinema then they need to release it to cinema.
Another aspect is that these judging organisations usually develop prestige through identifying and recognising quality, and having rigorous judging. If they exclude something for more arbitrary reasons, they're only hurting their own credibility in the long term.
"Rigorous" judging in an industry that gave Peter Jackson an Oscar for directing isn't something I'm holding out for.
Maybe the problem here is your expectations; I don't know. I've certainly never watched a movie because it won an award, although I have watched many because I heard of them in coverage of Cannes/Bafta/Oscars.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Because Netflix is making avant guard art. If you exclude the most interesting works than winning becomes meaningless. If winning is meaningless than ultimately nobody will pay attention anymore. If the underlayng reason for the festival was to build excitement about film to sell more tickets you cant succeed without the excitement
Netflix doesn't sell any tickets - that's the point.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
it's in the rules, the netflix movies do not comply to the rules and thus can't compete. every festival can make up it's own rules, i don't see the problem.
ofcourse it is stupid and silly and there are really good netflix movies available, but that is besides the point.
if i would organise a games festival, but in the rules it states it can only be cardboard games, then computer game companies can complain about it all they want, their products simply don't apply.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
i forgot, /. is only for your particular opinion only. thank you for your opinion on my non opinion.
Add a couple full-frontal dick-pics and you will have a formulaic Cannes winner.
Logic fail. I had time to learn about this logical fallacy thanks to all the extra time that labour unions gave us on weekends.