INTERVIEW
A difficult summer in sight for the seventh art in France. With important health measures, delays in the release of many films or even the cancellation of some American blockbusters, cinemas have attracted few people since the end of confinement. Anticipating weak box office results, some directors are giving up on releasing their films in theaters and negotiating with video-on-demand services (Netflix, Amazon Prime) to be able to broadcast them directly on the internet. For the director Yvan Attal ( Le Brio, They're everywhere, My stupid dog ), "we'll have to review our copy". Even if, he believes, "platforms are not completely a problem".
"We realized the absolute usefulness of films, series and platforms"
Yvan Attal affirms that the confinement made it possible to grasp the importance of the accessibility of the seventh art. "People were at home and they needed to see films. That's the good news anyway: we realized the absolute usefulness of films, series and platforms. I have never been against that, ”he said. Also an actor, Yvan Attal plays Romain Gary in Seberg , a film directed by Benedict Andrews and available on Amazon Prime since July 24.
However, there is no question for the famous French director to abandon the cinemas. "I think there are films that still have to be made for the cinema and then there are films that can be made for platforms", insists Yvan Attal. "Afterwards, maybe all of this will come together at some point, but there are films for the cinema, that's for sure."
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"Let us be reasonable" about the scale of the crisis, he slips, recalling that the French are coming out of several weeks of confinement. "I'm not sure people are watching movies now. Now that we can go out, I think they want to be at a sidewalk cafe more than watching yet another movie on Netflix or Amazon," explains he does. Yvan Attal remains confident all the same: "people will come back to the cinema". "We will have a little less sun soon, we will no longer be confined and we will want to return to the cinema," he concludes.