Why did Cannes turn its back on Netflix?
A Netflix film can win Oscars, yet since 2018 Netflix has stayed away from Cannes, all because of how long a film waits between the cinema and your sofa.
▶ Start the storyBecause of a fight over release rules. Netflix puts its films on its streaming service, and Cannes wanted competition films to have played in French cinemas. In April 2018 Netflix pulled out of Cannes in response to new rules requiring competition films to have been released in French theatres.
It had begun a year earlier. In 2017 Cannes selected two Netflix films for its main competition, and changing the rules on theatrical screening caused controversy. Audience members booed the Netflix production logo at the Okja screening. Netflix's attempts to negotiate a limited release in France were curtailed by organisers and by French law, which at the time kept theatrically screened films off on-demand services until at least 36 months after release. Since 2018, the enforcement of an eighteen-month theatrical window in France for main competition titles has kept Netflix out of the festival completely.
The same quarrel appeared in the United States. Alfonso Cuarón's Roma had a limited US theatrical run starting 21 November 2018 and began streaming on 14 December. The big chains AMC and Regal have refused to screen films from Netflix, because their policies require a minimum of 90 days between theatrical release and home viewing. Many believed Roma was made for home viewing, which made its Oscar eligibility controversial.
Jan 2007
Netflix launches streaming
2017
Two Netflix films in Cannes competition; logo booed
Apr 2018
Netflix pulls out of Cannes
Nov-Dec 2018
Roma plays limited cinemas, then streams
Yet Roma became the first film distributed primarily by a streaming service to be nominated for Best Picture, and the first Mexican entry to win Best Foreign Language Film.
90 days
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Recap
Netflix left Cannes because the festival required competition films to be released in French cinemas, which collides with streaming release.
💡 A trick to remember it · Screen first or sofa first: the window is the gap between them, and both sides fight over its size.
Surprising fact · Roma was the first streaming-distributed film nominated for Best Picture, yet the big US chains AMC and Regal refuse to screen Netflix films.
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Sources (3)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (15 claims) cites at least one of these.