As we reported earlier, it appears that Cannes 2020 is officially dead. That news comes on the heels of Tribeca, SXSW, Locarno, and various other events canceling this year due to COVID-19. Now, all eyes are on TIFF, Venice, and the fall festivals that begin in September to see if they can be the first post-pandemic events in the industry. Well, according to Paul Schrader, that’s not going to happen. And because of that, he has an idea how the festival year can be salvaged, if Netflix is willing to help.
READ MORE: Cannes 2020 Is Canceled But The Festival Will Still Announce Selections In June
Speaking to IndieWire, Schrader explained his idea for how to save film festivals in a time when physical events seem impossible. And though it’s unlikely to curry favor with the likes of Cannes and Venice organizers, the filmmaker’s idea leans heavily on a streaming partner to help bring this to fruition.
“There has to be a situation that creates festival buzz. That’s why I was thinking that you could have an all-star festival brought to you by Netflix, with selections from five or six festival heads, with different competitions. Netflix could advertise it, and you could create a simulation of the sort of buzz that independent films need.”
Why would Netflix be a better partner than other streamers? Especially if companies such as Amazon, Apple, Disney, and others are in direct competition with the largest streamer? Well, Schrader feels like the only way to make a “festival of festivals” happen is with the platform with the largest bank account.
“Netflix has the deepest pockets,” he explained. “It would have to be the festival of festivals. You’d have to get everyone to agree to it. That’s not going to be done by some local ad hoc group. That’s going to be done by somebody who can pay Scorsese $200 million to make a movie. The logistics are very large. All these festivals would have to get paid, because they can’t pay their own staff. Venice may be subsidized by the government, but Telluride isn’t. If you can get four or five of the main players to sign on, you’ll get the rest, because if Netflix says that Venice, Telluride, and Locarno are doing this, New York is going to want to be a part of it, too.”
As far as the assumption by organizers at TIFF, NYFF, Venice, Telluride, and other fall events that September will be the time when physical film festivals will be able to happen once again, thus creating a situation where digital events won’t be necessary, Schrader isn’t convinced. Not at all.
“No one wants to go. There won’t be a vaccine,” he said. “As for Telluride, Tom [Luddy] is trying to keep it alive. That’s why they tested the entire town. It’s a tourist town. They wanted to show that the town was safe. Well, some of the town tested positive. Now, you can’t advertise your town as safe based on that. Virtually all of these towns don’t have a large-enough local population to put on a real festival.”
So, if the fall festivals aren’t happening and Schrader, along with many other filmmakers, have films that will be ready to go, what should they do? The filmmaker said that if Venice actually happens, the event has already contacted him about premiering “The Card Counter” there, and he says that he could make it happen if he “rushed it.” But he doesn’t see the point, right now. Schrader feels that the best thing that could happen is an online festival with a streaming partner, to help ease the pain of the filmmakers trying to premiere their works in 2020.
But as of now, he’s looking forward to 2021 as the year when “The Card Counter” will have its premiere.
“That’s the plan now, but at some point, there will be a huge backlog. I’m not even sure Berlin will happen [in February],” he admitted.
With Cannes not happening and Venice next in line, the idea that the 2020 film festival season might be a complete wash is very real. Does that mean Paul Schrader’s idea for a “festival of festivals” will happen? Of course not. There are a ton of aspects that folks involved would have issues with, including piracy of selections, film distribution sales being affected, and numerous other things. That being said, Schrader has decades of experience at festivals and is one of the more outspoken filmmakers around, so the industry would be silly not to listen.
