In Cannes, we know the Palais des Festivals, where ceremonies and projections take place. For Europe 1, Virginie Salmen takes us to the basement, level -1, where movies from around the world are sold. Because the Festival is also a market.
Sellers from 114 countries
In the basement, stands are set up just for the duration of the festival, with closed offices for some. Sellers come from 114 different countries: Thailand, Croatia, China (represented by a huge pagoda-shaped stand) ...
Formerly, in the early years of the festival, movies were sold informally, over a drink, in hotel bars. On terraces, small wooden and canvas huts were mounted to project them. Now, this big market is organized, and Netflix and the other platforms are changing the rules of the game because they do not buy the movies to go out to the cinema, like the classic sellers, but only to fill their catalog on Internet.
The owner of the "Pyramide Films" distributor, Éric Lagesse, who sells films all over the world, has now Netflix in mind permanently, during his transactions. "When I put a film on the market as an international seller, I can have Netflix say to me, 'We love the movie, we want to buy it, but if you buy it, you buy it for the whole world. , and the film does not come out anywhere, "he explains, before confiding that he has already accepted such an offer.
"We do not refuse an interesting offer from Netflix that takes us rights world"
"I'm not at all a Joan of Arc fighting Netflix," he explains, "I sold to Netflix when I felt that the movie was not a film that was going to be sell on a lot of territories - it was a documentary called Humor to Death , about the Charlie Hebdo attacks .. Obviously, we do not refuse an interesting offer from Netflix that takes us rights world, but with a simple exploitation on a platform ", continues the seller. "It's a real reflection we can have, as international sellers, I sell my film to Netflix for X amount, often quite a comfortable amount, but that means the film will not have criticism in the New York Times , a criticism in the Guardian , and so may not have the notoriety he would have had if he was released in the room.That has a little shake the market, "he concludes.
Because the challenge is that the film knows the success it deserves, through criticism, word of mouth ... Now, sellers know it: if they yield to the "sirens of Netflix" - this is the expression that often comes back to Cannes - the film can get drowned in the platform, and the algorithm will never appear in your catalog, so you will not see it.
An argument to be weighed against the prices proposed by the American giant. According to another distributor, a French film author whose rights can be sold 100 or 200,000 euros, Netflix easily offers 500,000. The money will not be paid net, but monthly, which may be less interesting. In addition, the platforms will impose additional work on the distributor that can cost him dearly, such as adding subtitles in ten languages.
25 Netflix representatives accredited in Cannes
If we talk a lot about Netflix, there is also Amazon, or Disney, which is launching, and a lot of other small platforms, much less powerful financially, like MUBI, for the films of authors. This year, 25 people from Netflix have been accredited for the Festival. In total, Cannes hosts a hundred representatives from all platforms, out of 12,000 participants.
But it is very difficult to approach them, explains the director of the Marché du film, Jerome Paillard. "They are quite discreet and because they are extremely busy, unlike other distributors who are more easily contacted, they really choose who they are going to talk to, and have a very specific agenda of the people they will meet and movies they will see, "he explains.
Netflix is also interested in new film markets: the American platform bought for the first time a few months ago a film from Nigeria, which had to be reworked to adapt to international standards. The trailer was indeed 5 or 6 minutes, much too long for an American or European audience.