On its second week, the Cannes Film Festival is a reminder that large in-person events can be hosted in the new normal that is a post-pandemic world. Despite COVID-19 still looming in several countries, its organisers decided to go ahead with the festival by introducing restrictions. Mandatory face masks during all film sessions and putting in place a dedicated Covid test centre providing free tests for all attendees. Remarkably these compulsory tests have returned an average of only three positive cases per day since the festival got underway on July 6th.
The biggest film festival in the world, currently on its 74th edition, is a reminder that there is life beyond our TVs and digital devices in a time when traditional Cinema and streaming services are fighting, daily, for their audiences’ attention.
After 15 months of Netflix, Amazon TV or Apple filling the gap of closed cinemas, can streaming services and cinemas now coexist in 2021 and beyond?
For American filmmaker Spike Lee, who is the President of the Cannes Festival jury this year, things should move back to normal post-pandemic. In the same way people have been making a choice between TV and the big screens since moving pictures were introduced, people will be left with the same dilemma post-Covid.
“Cinema and screening platforms can coexist. At one time, there was a thinking that TV was going to kill cinema. This stuff is not new.” – Lee reminded everyone at a press conference held during the Cannes Film Festival.
For screenwriter Terence O’Toole, cinema as we once knew it no longer exists. And that process might have started way before the first case of coronavirus was spotted in China at the end of 2019.
“I think cinema will survive. But it will now be more of an art house experience – like our current fascination with vinyl records and film cameras. We will continue to need cultural touchpoints that we can look back at as we move forward. Just very recently, Quentin Tarantino purchased the historic Vista Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Los Feliz and hopefully, historic movie places like this will survive and thrive as so many talented individuals still love and support the medium. Hopefully, the community experience of watching a film in a dark theatre will never vanish.” – believes O’Toole.
The reason people are staying away from screenings may have as much to do with their pockets as it has with a fear of catching a virus.
“For people in their 30s and older, there is a nostalgia of going to the movies. But that nostalgia now ends with ticket prices and the cost of a drink and popcorn. One movie ticket now costs more than a monthly subscription to a streaming service, and a drink and a popcorn for one costs more than the ticket. Taking a date or the family to the movies could cost more than a streaming service for six-months.” – Says Andrew Selepak, Director of a Master’s program in Social Media at University of Florida.
Convenience also plays a big part in the decision process, as Selepak explains: “With streaming platforms, if we don’t like a movie we have just started watching we can easily exit out and find a new one. It doesn’t cost anything more than our monthly subscription. We can even watch a trailer for the film before we start watching it and decide we don’t want to see it and save time. I believe that, for younger people, movies don’t have the same romanticization that they do for people in their 30s and older. This is partly because of the excess of sequels, prequels, and remakes. Besides, we now have big TVs at home – and if we need to pause a movie to get food, use the bathroom, or look up the name of that actor we can’t remember, we can do it without feeling guilty about disturbing others.” – advocates Andrew, whose academic specialisation is in popular culture and media.
Cannes Film Festival has been fighting the corner of films being released as they used to be: in the cinemas. In 2017, the event allowed two Netflix films, Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories, enter their competition for the first time ever. However, the festival then declared that, starting in 2018, all competition films must receive a theatrical release in France. As premiering a film in the cinemas, instead of exclusively for their paying subscribers, didn’t make much sense for an online service, Netflix decided not to return to Cannes.
The show went on for both parties, though. Netflix added more than 36 million new subscribers in 2020 to pass 200 million subscribers worldwide. On the other side, Cannes film festival received over 2500 films willing to compete for a coveted Palm D’or. Only 24 of those submitted movies, less than 1%, made it to the official competition selection.
As long as people continue to pay for streaming services, it is likely that film studios will continue to release media on streaming platforms in order to reach as many viewers as possible.
As lockdown restrictions for entertainment venues comes to an end, it will be interesting to see if people will leave their houses and make a come-back to the cinemas – or if streaming will become our preferred way to watch films, moving forward.
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