Bertrand Bonello: “Our desire is not to tax but to integrate”

“There is a very French desire to protect theatrical films in the media chronology. Evolution yes, revolution no. We have to imagine it as a general architecture, to have a sort of wide shot where the distribution of works is protected and we also find ours with pre-financing. With these platforms, we face real multinationals. We try to explain to these non-European players how we operate. Our desire is not to tax them but to integrate them into a system that works. Obviously, we have to do education because Netflix’s DNA is not to pay for films that they do not have exclusively. But that’s how broadcasters work with us. As a member of the SRF, organizer of the Directors’ Fortnight, I have no problem with the selection of a film in Cannes produced by platforms. These are the filmmakers who make these films. It is not because David Fincher finds his place on Netflix that he will be banned from the studios. I have no particular opinion on the partnership between Netflix and the Cinémathèque. It’s very clever. Since these people have arrived, exist and are important, I am for the movement of things and see how we can work together. When VHS and Canal arrived at the beginning of the 1980s, we said, “cinema is dead”. This is absolutely wrong. 70% of my cinephilia comes from VHS. On the other hand, it is a danger that Disney and Warner want to do without the room. It’s hard to imagine things two years from now. There is no room. There are exceptional agreements, including in France, which allow producers to resell films that were to be released in theaters to platforms. It must not become permanent. Disney generates $ 1.2 billion in revenue by releasing a movie, it can’t do without theaters altogether. “