CANNES: Already shedding subscribers, Netflix may also be losing some of its big-name directors, with Italian Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino telling Cannes on Tuesday that he is finished with streaming platforms.
“Maybe it’s because I’m becoming old, but the best thing for me is to try to make things for the big screen,” Sorrentino told an audience at the Cannes Film Festival.
The director of “The Great Beauty”, which won a foreign language Oscar in 2014, said the “power of the image” could only be fully realised on a big screen.
“With a TV series, it’s not easy to remember great images,” he said. “I don’t (watch) movies done for TV or platforms because I don’t find what I’m looking for.”
Sorrentino is one of many lauded auteurs – including Martin Scorsese and Jane Campion – who have benefitted from Netflix’s deep pockets in recent years.
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He made TV series “The Young Pope” for the platform, as well as last year’s autobiographical film, “The Hand of God”.
“The movie I made for Netflix was good for Netflix, but it’s not something (I want) to happen again,” he said.
The influx of easy money was actually a problem, he added.
“For many filmmakers there was this overdose of chances to do things – movies, TV series. We started to be very rushed,” Sorrentino said.
“A good movie needs time. It was a fake opportunity. It’s important to go back to the past.”
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Netflix announced earlier this year that it had lost subscribers for the first time in a decade, and trimmed staff last week.
Sorrentino’s opinion will be music to the ears of the Cannes organisers, who have barred Netflix and other streamers from competing at the festival because they do not give their movies a long-enough period in cinemas.
The 51-year-old director said he was optimistic about the future of cinemas.
“At a certain point, people will get tired of watching films at home,” he said.
He also criticised platforms for not using their money to finance new voices.
“Compared to the amount of money that platforms have, I never see that they invest money for younger film-makers, and they could.”
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