For many film fans, the Cannes Film Festival is an event where the greatest filmmakers from around the world show their latest and greatest films. For press, it’s an incredibly busy event with interviews, press conferences, news, and reviews around the clock. But yet, there’s also another presence that is almost more important than anything else, the sales agents and studio buyers.
Wild Bunch is a company that is responsible for handling the sales of many high-profile films at Cannes, each year. And with all the recent controversy surrounding the event, Wild Bunch can offer a unique perspective that fans, press, studios, and even filmmakers can’t.
In an interview with IndieWire, veteran Wild Bunch sales agent Vincent Maraval discussed some of the controversies surrounding the Cannes Film Festival, and he definitely doesn’t hold back his true feelings.
The biggest topic that concerns his company is the feud between Netflix and Cannes. As we’ve discussed time and time again, Netflix has pulled out from showing any films at Cannes due to a French law that prevents a film from streaming online for 36 months after playing in French theaters. Clearly, that type of rule just doesn’t work for Netflix. But Netflix is a huge player, still, by purchasing films.
“Netflix is probably the number one client of local cinema for foreign sales. It’s probably the biggest client for French cinema, even if the French don’t really welcome them. It’s the same for the Spanish and Italian films,” explains Maraval.
Maraval doesn’t hold back with his thoughts on the feud, saying, “It’s stupid for both of them. It was the French exhibitors who started that fight. They started that fight with no legitimacy. There was nothing wrong except that they weren’t welcoming to an American company. That’s the root of the problem. It’s America, we hate them, we don’t want them to come into our market. It’s a kind of fear that’s basically the same as the fear of immigrants: ‘We don’t want them at home.’”
But he doesn’t just blame the French law. He also blames the festival for having rules that just don’t make sense, when compared to other major festivals. “I would like to know if, at the Venice Film Festival, if a French film doesn’t have a theatrical distributor so it can’t be released, how many French films would be in Venice? So it’s a pure nationalistic thing, and it’s stupid,” says the sales agent.
It’s not just the Netflix/Cannes situation that Maraval thinks is “stupid.” When asked about the lack of representation of women at the festival, and if he thinks something needs to be done, the sales agent doesn’t hold back, saying, “The debate about the number of women-directed films at Cannes is the most stupid debate to me. It makes me upset. This year, there are three women in competition… I don’t want to think they’ve been selected there because they’re women. I would think that would be quite humiliating for them. I don’t want to think that in any festival a film is selected just for that reason. It’s really insulting.”
And speaking of women, the interview goes into the Harvey Weinstein allegations. As we’ve covered before, many European film industry types have defended Weinstein. While some defend him on all counts, many just defend his love of cinema, and his impact on foreign film. Maraval counts himself as part of the latter category.
“We’ll miss Harvey, not as a person, but as someone who bought these kinds of films, as one of the guys who was taking risks on cinema. He wasn’t that guy for the last few years, and as a person, he was not a pleasant guy to deal with. I can only speak about Harvey from a professional point of view, which is that 10 years ago, he was someone who could bring a Cannes film further than Cannes. We miss that kind of person. We hope that someone will replace him in that type of risk taking,” explains Maraval.
As we approach opening night at Cannes, it’ll be interesting to see the news being made by Wild Bunch, and if there’s anymore controversy that’ll come from the event.