Journalists and filmmakers and the cinema itself faces growing political threats and increasing difficulties, according to representatives of the film industry at the Summit of Zurich on Saturday.
Kathleen Fournier, producer of Julian Julian Julian Assange, participated in a discussion on the political disorders of the entertainment industry at the event of Zurich Film Festival, the producer of the Julian Assange Doc “The Six Billion Dollar Man”; David Unger, CEO of Artist International Group; Nathanaël Karmitz, president of MK2, based in Paris; And Stephen Suit, film data researcher and consultant for Guinness World Records.
Offer a brutal example of the darkening climate for filmmakers was Fournier’s experience in the production of “The Six Billion Dollar Man” by Eugene Jarecki, which projects the Zurich Film Festival.
“As a filmmaker, as a producer, there are sometimes substantial risks for me and my team personally,” said Fournier, explaining how she moved with her family to Berlin to work on the documentary, which tells “the definitive history of Wikileaks”, because of the potentially explosive images they had obtained.
“We did not feel comfortable to modify in the United Kingdom or the United States because there are laws and means of grasping images, and journalists are not protected from the way they are in Germany. So we moved all the production and publishing of the team in Berlin, and it was really inspiring and very interesting … until Gaza occurred and we started to see that even in Germany. time and react to that.
She added: “I think we really need a mechanism in place to protect journalists. And that’s what our film is talking about.”
Fournier also noted how the evolution of the political climate and the growth of streaming platforms have had an impact on the perspectives of certain types of documentaries.
“Previously, if you won an Emmy,” won the prize for the Grand Jury Sundance, “won a griererson prize, you would have no trouble making your films made. And we have won all those with many of our films. I do not complain that the doors have closed, but what I see is that the documentaries have made that the streaming platforms did not make the streaming platforms did not only make the jump.
“The type of documentary that you now find on streaming platforms tends to be historical – there is the past, so it applauds the issues in a way because these people have left, this time is over – or it’s the real crime or it’s often very some sort of personal stories. It is therefore interesting to make a film at this particular moment because the media landscape fundamentally changes, spectacularly. ”
However, life has always been difficult, added Fournier. “Each era has its challenges, and I think that we, as a generation, my generation, inherited many fruit of others in the movement of civil rights, in terms of civil freedoms. Now, it is up to us to defend ourselves and really investigate that it means that some of these rights and freedoms are disputed or distant. ”
Despite the victory of the Golden Eye special jury of this year in Cannes and a “phenomenal” projection in Zurich, “The Six Billion Dollar Man” has not yet won an American distributor.
“We have danced with many partners and spoken. People like the film, but it’s a difficult film. … He talks about Trump, he talks about the deep state. He uses all the facts that come from various legal cases. It is an incredibly and deeply studied film.”
Offering a strong criticism of industry, follows that the burden was on businesses to show greater courage, as was the case in the 1970s, which experienced a much more courageous, more diverse and interesting narration than what was produced in the following decades.
“The film industry is fundamentally, as a business and as a ecosystem, risks being opposed and frightened and loose … It is absolutely loose that they do not say these films. The police, we did not sort. »»
While stressing that politics and cinema have always been very linked, Karmitz said: “What is new is that we ask this question, and we ask this type of question because culture is attacked and the cinema is attacked.”
Karmitz said that while the press was talking about films less and less, far-right accounts on the X social media platform systematically attacked “everything about French films and films”.
The extreme right has become the major voice discussing cinema on X, he added. “Is this a problem? Yes, this is the case, because the question is, how do we organize ourselves to retaliate? ”
Karmitz noted that many film events and MK2 discussions attract controversial reactions from extreme right criticism.
By looking at the broader situation in France, he also underlined the recent legal challenge to the National CNC Film Center in the Parliament and the current assault on national television.
UNGER, for its part, expressed its optimism that the climate will eventually improve. He recalled how the previous films of Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kramer “were incredibly controversial” in their time. The 1967 Kramer’s classic “Guess who’s coming to Dinner”, for example, no longer causes the great heckling he made.
He also stressed the importance of such a discussion at the Zurich summit. “I see that this register is here. And I think that for us to have this dialogue here is important, because it forces us all in this room to be examined where the company is located and how we can help shape it. ”
