With the World famous Cannes Film Festival opening today, the Festival director, Thierry Fremaux spoke during a press conference on the eve of the opening ceremony. Fremaux took the opportunity to take a swipe at the rival film festivals by calling them “soft” for allowing many direct-to-OTT released films to feature in said festivals, particularly the Netflix and Amazon Prime Video released films. Film festivals such as Venice have included films made by streaming giants in their main competition lineups without imposing stringent demands, with the Cannes Film Festival general delegate accusing such film festivals as wanting to kill Cinema.
There is no doubt that 2020 was a disastrous year for Cinema. There is also no doubt that OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have thrived in the absence of any kind of media competition for a solid 6-8 months (after which they faced more rival OTT platforms). But accusing other major International film festivals of wanting to kill off Cinema is a tad bit nuts, especially since the coronavirus pandemic pretty much transformed the film viewing situation around the world. While films have started featuring in theatres around the world, a majority of the planet is still unable to release feature films in theatres.
Fremaux was a little too harsh, especially after Cannes invited Netflix to this year’s festival to screen films out of the competition, but the streaming platform had declined the offer. With good reason, in our opinion to some extent. With the amount of brilliant International content having come out of Netflix in the past year, it has been extremely unfair on Cannes’ part. Hopefully with time, Cannes’ will ease up on its restrictions over direct-to-OTT films, and will hopefully feature true ground-breaking works of art, regardless of the mode of release.
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