Post-Covid cinema
Audio 02:25
Netflix movie theaters were slated to take place between December 7 and December 14, 2021, in several arthouse-rated theaters, but have been canceled.
© Getty Images / LPETTET
By: Amaury de Rochegonde Follow
2 min
Faced with the rise of video-on-demand platforms, can cinema resist and with what funding mechanism?
The question was at the heart of the meetings of authors, directors and producers, at the beginning of November in Le Touquet.
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These ARP meetings bear witness to this: cinemas are at a crucial moment in their history.
Not only because of the pandemic which triggered the closure of the rooms during confinement, and which still leads in October to an attendance 29% lower than it was before the Covid, two years ago.
Also, because as the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot said, "
the film industry was supported during the crisis like nowhere in the world
".
It has indeed received unwavering support from the government - a fund to ensure filming, 436 million euros in sectoral aid, 1.3 billion euros in cross-functional systems ... But after?
Negotiations that get stuck
With the signing in June of a decree on audiovisual media services, new resources are expected.
Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney + must devote 20 to 25% of their turnover in France to financing creation, of which a fifth is in favor of French cinema.
In return, these platforms will be able to broadcast the films earlier.
The professionals propose that it be 15 months after the theatrical release rather than 36 months today, which is acceptable for everyone except for Canal +, which remains the main financier of French cinema and which finds its period of exclusivity too short for the effort asked of him, more than 200 million euros.
Competition from platforms that threaten cinemas
It is therefore on this “
chronology of the media
” that the negotiations come up against, and we can clearly see that it is the entire place of video on demand by subscription that is in question. The debate took a very controversial turn when the Cinémathèque française and the Louis Lumière Institute in Lyon agreed to screen three Netflix films in December in a club that was quickly called the Netflix Festival.
Dominique Boutonnat, the president of the CNC, calls for redefining "
what a film is today
". Why not make room for works from platforms that can, as he says, “
be consumed elsewhere than in the cinema?
". But, at the same time, asks Nicolas Brigaud-Robert of Playtime: “
Can we imagine a literature reserved for a few happy few who would also be prohibited from sharing it?
"
Because the specificity of these platforms is to demand global digital rights by ensuring the exclusivity of big names in production, direction or casting, whether Gaumont, Jane Campion or Omar Sy.
So yes, the platforms are getting closer to the cinema from which they aspire the talents and spectators.
But this is probably not to save theaters!
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