This year at the Cannes Film Festival, while many high profile pictures unfurled, the conversation that remained at the forefront was all about Netflix. The streaming service, who brought Bong Joon-Ho‘s “Okja” and Noah Baumbach‘s “The Meyerowitz Stories” to the festival, became the target of French distributors, angered that Netflix skirts stringent release rules by not opening their films in theaters. There was a lot of talk about whether or not the company is hurting or helping cinema, but Roman Polanski, who brought his critically drubbed “Based On A True Story” to Cannes, isn’t worried about the medium.
At the press conference for his film, Polanski weighed in on the controversy, essentially noting that new technology always tends to send panic among those used to tradition.
“In regards to to the tendency of TV series and big firms encroaching on the festival, it’s beyond my possibility of analysis,” he said. “I think the future will tell you what’s happening. I don’t think it’s a basic threat for cinema. People will go to the movies, not because of better sound, projection or seats, they go to the cinema because they can participate with the audience around them.”
