So to bury our heads in the sand and say, “Oh no, we mustn’t go near Netflix, it’s the big bad wolf”—that’s completely stupid. There you go: it’s completely stupid. The battle is lost anyway—that’s it. (Cinéma Utopia)
- 1 “Netflix a voulu organiser un festival et le monde du cinéma s’est entretué” is the title of an art (...)
1In late 2021, plans to organize a Netflix festival—the Netflix Film Club—in French arthouse cinemas sparked extremely virulent reactions. The event was first abandoned and then ultimately held at the Cinémathèque française and the Institut Lumière in early 2022. Drawing on an analysis of this controversy, this article1 seeks to shed light on the fault lines within the cinematic field, involving diverse actors (Netflix, arthouse theatres, and historical cinema institutions), as well as the forms of circulation operating between the worlds of cinema and audiovisual media.
2The intense negative response to the idea of such a festival by the various players in French film distribution—mainly distributors and exhibitors, but also filmmakers—was striking in its apparent unanimity. Yet some arthouse cinemas had initially accepted the idea: examining the reasons they put forward, through ethnographic inquiry, sheds light on how transfers between two industries became possible despite an explosive context. Analysing how the different protagonists in this sequence used the category of “independence”—a fluid notion that is highly strategic in its usage (Alexandre, Noël & Pinto 2017), enlightens the conditions under which an alliance could emerge between actors seemingly worlds apart, who nonetheless recognized and accommodated one another, at least temporarily, around an opportunity to secure both economic and symbolic gains. At the same time, this investigation confirms the diversity among independent exhibitors—a diversity that mirrors the aims of arthouse policy: defending cinematic quality, promoting cultural democratization, implementing territorial planning, and resisting concentration by sustaining independent, local, community-based theatres. More fundamentally, this study seeks to highlight elective affinities between Netflix’s positions and those of certain segments of theatrical exhibition, drawing on a prior understanding of the fault lines that long predate the rise of streaming platforms.
- 2 The interviews were conducted between summer 2021 and summer 2022, lasting between 55 minutes and 2 (...)
3This article draws on sources from the general, specialised, and professional press, promotional material from cinemas and Netflix (available on their websites), press releases from the various entities studied, as well as six interviews2 with exhibitors and distributors. More broadly, it relies on knowledge of the arthouse cinema sector derived from a doctoral study on France’s Art et Essai label (Pinto 2012) and on regular monitoring of developments in the arthouse sector in France over the past decade. Our lack of access to respondents from Netflix France and the agency responsible for programming the festival contrasts with the ready willingness of exhibitors approached to host the Netflix Film Club, who were interested in explaining their motivations in a context of strong polarization within the film exhibition industry. The Netflix teams’ reluctance to be interviewed can be explained by the fact that the festival may have constituted a kind of test—the stakes of which were relatively low, since it was part of a wider range of initiatives aimed at countering the platform’s purely commercial image—a test that was, to some extent, “passed” given the eventual acceptance of the programming at the Cinémathèque française and the Institut Lumière a few months later.
4Netflix’s image as an industrial player posing a threat to France’s distribution and exhibition landscape stems primarily from its nature as a streaming platform, or more specifically as a subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) service, a format that appeared in France in the mid-2010s alongside services such as Prime Video and Disney+, offering users access to a vast catalogue of audiovisual content3 (films and series) at home. The platforms’ national origin—the United States—further reinforces the commercial positioning they demonstrated from the outset, since US productions have historically been categorized, particularly in France, as part of the major-production sector (Duval 2016, 2024; Vernet 2021).4 These platforms can offer content for which they have acquired rights from fournisseurs de contenus (content providers)5—with such content potentially available on other media; purchase exclusive rights; or even produce their own content that is not available anywhere else. In line with the gradual integration of the audiovisual industry into film financing in the second half of the twentieth century (Depétris 2008), these platforms’ arrival in the French audiovisual landscape has, in recent years, prompted a major regulatory effort led by the CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée / French National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image) and ARCOM (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique / French Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication), in response to the concerns of traditional producers and distributors of audiovisual works in France, in both cinema and television. This effort first materialized in June 2021 with the extension to French and foreign platforms of obligations to finance European and French-language audiovisual works through production and broadcasting, as established by the amended law of 30 September 1986. Then came changes to the chronologie des medias (media staggering system)—under which different media are allocated successive exhibition “windows” for given content—which was fiercely renegotiated in January 20226 and again in 2025. In exchange for the financing obligations mentioned above, the chronologie des médias allows cinemas to retain exclusivity over film screenings for several months before films can be exploited on video (physical media or pay-per-view VOD), on pay-TV channels such as Canal+ or OCS, on Netflix, then on PrimeVideo or Disney+, and finally on free-to-air television.
- 7 A term that is both native [to film industry] and used in social science research (information and (...)
- 8 The following quotes [translated here from the original French] are from the pop-up website https:/ (...)
- 9 Translator’s note: Quotes in this paragraph are our translations from the original French.
5The chronologie des médias was not imposed on Netflix unilaterally by public authorities: complying with this system also represents a medium-term strategy for the platform to legitimize its position among broadcasters and creators of “content” within the French film and audiovisual industry. Accordingly, Netflix has worked to signal its integration into the “ecosystem7 of financing French filmmaking,” regardless of the status of the works. For the platform’s tenth anniversary in France, the pop-up website8 launched for the occasion highlighted the success of French series (“International success—honestly earned—for Lupin” and “Tapie triumphs at the BAFTAs [British Academy Television Awards]”), headed by Marseille, the “first French original series,” marking “the beginning of [Netflix’s] creative adventure” in France. This is when a “French-style romance between Netflix and its subscribers” began to develop (“As the community grows, quality and diversity remain at the core of Netflix’s editorial choices”), with the milestone of ten million subscribers reached, as part of a broader ramping up of the “Netflix Originals” production policy (Wiart 2021).9
- 10 As noted by Denis Rostein, CEO of UniversCiné, in March 2021 in Julie Pacaud’s article, “Netflix : (...)
6These editorial choices—and above all, the communication surrounding them—demonstrate Netflix’s mastery of certain aspects of the nomos specific to this world, a mastery that also contributes to the platform’s legitimization within the French cinematic field. This is exemplified by Netflix’s partnership with the Parisian network MK2 in 2020, to enrich its catalogue with widely acclaimed works by French and international filmmakers, such as Truffaut, Chaplin, Resnais, Lynch, Kusturica, Haneke, and Kieslowski. Similarly, Netflix’s acquisition in 2023 of the status of Grand mécène (major patron) of the Cinémathèque française—a central institution in the French cinematic sphere—in some manner marks the culmination of a series of initiatives undertaken in recent years. This indicates that Netflix’s activity extends beyond the mere provision of “content” on its platform: it can also meet the expectations of French cultural institutions (as do Cinémathèques [film libraries] and arthouse cinemas). First, it contributes to the transmission and promotion of (“French,” per Netflix’s communications) film heritage. Second, it supports educational activities aimed at young audiences. To such an extent, in fact, that some executives of French platforms specialising in auteur cinema—whether for niche or broader audiences—have expressed alarm at Netflix’s conquest of this new segment.10 In addition, its video-on-demand service, more than its direct competitors PrimeVideo and Disney+, has so far negotiated shorter release windows for works in exchange for a larger share of “independent” French productions.
7We will first present the unfolding of the “uproar” that followed the announcement of the Netflix Film Club, the profile of the films selected by Netflix from its catalogue, and the profile of the theatres contacted to screen some of these films during the event.
8We will then analyse the massive backlash from the film industry (professional organizations representing exhibitors, distributors, and creators) as a form of defence of the boundaries of the cinematic field and a reaffirmation of its autonomy in response to digital platforms’ legitimization strategies. On the question of whether films with similar characteristics but produced in different contexts—that is, “cinema” films, intended to be distributed first in theatres and then on various media according to the chronologie des médias discussed above, versus “platform” films, either distributed directly on the platform or, for a minority, screened in theatres like other “cinema” films—are likely to circulate in the same spaces, this episode shows that in many respects, this type of mutual circulation is (thus far) largely unachieved, at least in France.
9Independent players accepting an alliance that could be considered unnatural can therefore fear conflicts with their counterparts (independent distributors and other arthouse exhibitors), or even reprisals from more powerful players (vertically integrated circuits in France, such as Pathé or Gaumont). To resolve this sociological conundrum, in section three, we will analyse the characteristics of the theatres targeted by Netflix and the justifications provided by their exhibitors, to show that they outline a specific definition of independence that is quite different from that of opponents to this programming.
- 11 With the exception of one exhibitor contacted “by mistake,” as we shall see, the sample is exclusiv (...)
10Finally, we will hypothesize that this specific definition of independence, which in many respects is most compatible with Netflix’s position, is not unrelated to the social background and trajectory of the exhibitors concerned.11 This Netflix uproar ultimately led to a hardening of oppositions that are usually euphemized, bringing to the fore the figure of the irreducible independent—whose programming policy cannot be dictated by anyone, who seeks to win over new audiences because they are financially responsible for their theatre, which is necessarily privately run, and who is slightly wary of unanimous displays of artistic purity. This case study thus illustrates how logics external to a cultural world—here, cinema—are refracted, and how cultural intermediaries retranslate, within a specific field—here, theatrical exhibition—the polarizations found in cultural goods markets, such as between commercial and cultural poles, and between publicly and privately run establishments.
- 12 Founded in 2009, the agency’s mission, as stated on its website [Translator’s note: Translated here (...)
- 13 According to one of the exhibitors interviewed [Translator’s note: Translated here from the origina (...)
- 14 To be screened in theatres, films must traditionally have a visa d’exploitation (exhibition license (...)
- 15 Known as visas exceptionnels (special licenses) since February 2022.
11In late October 2021, Netflix contacted a number of French movie theatres to schedule a Netflix Film Club (NFC) for one week in December, through an event and programming agency specialising in independent and arthouse cinema.12 This “Netflix festival”13 involved one or more screenings during that week of films selected from among nine films made available by Netflix; some were already available on the platform, while others had an imminent release date, with the possibility for programmers to view the films prior to their selection. Legal matters did not pose a problem,14 as exhibitors could request temporary exhibition licenses15 from the CNC for one-off screenings of works not intended for theatrical release.
List of films in offer for the Netflix Film Club programming
– The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal, release date: 31 December 2021, premiere: NFC and Venice Film Festival 2021 (Best Screenplay Award);
– Pieces of a Woman, Kornél Mundruczó, release date: 7 January 2021, premiere: Venice Film Festival 2020 (Volpi Cup for Best Actress and 2021 Oscar nomination for Best Actress for Vanessa Kirby);
– Malcolm & Marie, Sam Levinson, release date: 5 February 2021;
– The Guilty, Antoine Fuqua, release date: 1st October 2021, premiere: Toronto International Film Festival 2021;
– The Harder They Fall, Jeymes Samuel, release date: 3rd November 2021, premiere: BFI London Film Festival 2021;
– Passing / Clair-Obscur, Rebecca Hall, release date: 10 November 2021, premiere: Sundance Film Festival 2021;
– The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion, release date: 1st December 2021, premiere: Venice Film Festival 2021 (Silver Lion for Best Director);
– The Hand of God / La Main De Dieu, Paolo Sorrentino, release date: 15 December 2021, premiere: NFC and Venice Film Festival 2021 (Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize, Best New Actor for Filippo Scotti);
– Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay, release date: 24 December 2021, premiere: NFC.
12The films on offer were Netflix original productions, that is, works commissioned from production companies for exclusive release on the platform (Barthes 2018). Some had been selected or won awards at competitive international festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Sundance, thereby accumulating symbolic capital—one of the principal functions of festival screenings (Delaporte 2022; De Valck 2016; Lecler 2017), while others would be premiering in the NFC. In terms of content, these titles constituted a showcase of the platform’s auteur offering, featuring established names such as Jane Campion, Paolo Sorrentino, Antoine Fuqua, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as well as emerging filmmakers such as Rebecca Hall and Jeymes Samuel. An exhibitor who first accepted Netflix’s proposal described these films as “Netflix’s flagship titles,” “the best films produced by Netflix,” and “quite dazzling” (E3). Drawing on the work of Julien Duval (2016, 2023) on the cinematic field, these directors can be characterized as enjoying both critical and media recognition, albeit at different stages of their careers and through varying pathways to the status of director (several having first achieved recognition as actors for already canonized directors). These films exemplify what exhibitors call “films AE [Art et Essai] porteurs” (Pinto 2018), an industry category for prestigious—and commercially strong—auteur films, traditionally the marquee titles driving arthouse box office. These arthouse blockbusters have become a source of competitive tension for arthouse theatres—first, since the 2010s, with mainstream circuits (UGC, Pathé, etc.) and multiplexes in major cities, and, more recently, with streaming platforms. Although mentioned in interviews by only one exhibitor approached for the NFC, the gradual disappearance of this segment of cinematic creation—first from the screens of independent theatres (as these films were picked up by the circuits), and then from the big screen altogether (as they became exclusively available on platforms)—appears indicative of a deeper structural trend (Paquet 2020) affecting France’s entire exhibition sector, and especially the arthouse network:
E6: We stay away from blockbusters. Well, fortunately, there are a few exceptions. We’d obviously be thrilled to show James Gray’s Armageddon Time, but we see that we’re… We no longer have access. We don’t get interesting American films—or very few—that we can programme. And I think that, yes, for theatres like ours, it’s… I mean, we could have screened a film like Don’t Look Up; obviously, that… for sure. Obviously, that would have been a great thing for us.
Author: That’s your audience…
E6: For theatres like ours, obviously, that would have been a great thing.
Author: But that’s interesting, because you’re the first, actually, to tell me this—that this is also a category of films that is disappearing from distributors’ offerings in France.
E6: Well, yes, of course, obviously.
- 16 France’s arthouse cinemas are all “commercial” cinemas in that they participate in the "revenue sha (...)
- 17 The importance of this standing can be objectively measured by the coefficient Art et Essai (arthou (...)
13The theatres approached by the agency commissioned by Netflix were, without exception, private theatres16 holding the Art et Essai (arthouse) label, among the most prestigious in France, in terms of both box office and their curatorial and audience engagement practices.17 They are located in major urban centres, in the vein of the MK2 network in Paris, Cinémas Star in Strasbourg, the Utopia network in Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Montpellier, and Le Méliès in Saint-Étienne. That the agency received only positive responses (with one exception, which proves the rule, as it was the sole publicly funded venue in the sample) suggests an informed understanding of the French exhibition landscape—along with the intuition, beyond the reputational excellence of these theatres, that such programming might be favourably received. The objective foundations of this intuition will be examined in the final section of this article.
14What were the exhibitors contacted thinking at the time? When asked this question several months later—after the fierce controversy sparked within the profession by this initiative—they systematically downplayed the scope of the event, clearly conceived as a “one-shot” rather than the start of regular Netflix film screenings. They emphasized their awareness of the risk of being instrumentalized by the platform to “generate a bit of buzz around Netflix releases.” As one explained about their theatre:
We had planned to take less than half of the films on offer and show them in a single screening, organizing a roundtable with a producer, a distributor, and filmmakers to present the current issues surrounding platforms, reflect on what cinema, a film, or a series is, and help the general public understand the stakes. (E3)
15These programmers also pointed out that there were already precedents for showing Netflix films in cinemas: for example, in 2017, a few screenings of Okja by Bong Joon-ho (including one in July 2017 at Utopia Bordeaux, one of the theatres approached for the NFC), and, in January 2019, Roma by Alfonso Cuarón (shown at free, private screenings in several theatres in southern France as part of the Rencontres du Cinéma Sud-Américain in Marseille). Several exhibitors also recalled that controversies surrounding exceptions to the chronologie des média were not new, although previously less publicized than those triggered by the NFC:
- 18 Association française des cinémas d’Art et essai – the main association for France’s classified art (...)
I know there were periods when, to those the profession, the absolute enemy was Canal+ or Arte. Well, especially Arte: films that aired on Arte at the time of screenings—that was bad. It was a major no-no. So when that happened, there would be an email from the unions and the Federation saying: “You should…”—or from the AFCAE,18 saying—“Do not get involved in that game. You’ve programmed it; take it off the program,” and what not. Anyway, what was, in my—I mean I say “my,” our, but in my opinion at least—an aberration (E5).
16Consequently, these exhibitors today agree that they knew they would be “in the hot seat”: “we’re going to be seen as the bad guys; we’ll have to explain our approach” (E1); “it really unleashed intense reactions; I thought we had set ourselves up for a beating” (E2); “[in discussions with their usual institutional and cultural partners] we were being seen as akin to vampires and murderers” (E5). Thus, when the professional associations—especially those representing exhibitors, distributors, and filmmakers—got wind of the initiative, a host of reactions came out in press releases and media statements, even including—as reported by some of the theatres concerned—threats regarding future allocation of film prints, notably from the largest distributors, or at least “very, very tense” exchanges (E3).
Figure 1
Credit: Oscar Vargas (Unsplash licence).
- 19 See Romain Blondeau’s pamphlet (2022) on this subject.
17While characterization of the cinema world as a field is a matter of debate compared to other fields of cultural production (Alexandre 2015; Bourdieu 1996 [1992]; Duval 2016)—notably due to the economic stakes involved for entry and survival within it (Hammou et al. 2019)—the notion of field can nevertheless be mobilized, as explained by Bourdieu (1999, cited in Duval 2024: 69), as “an instrument for constructing objects, which is designed to study social reality rather than to be considered in itself.” Its use can thus prove heuristic for questioning the relationships between the national and transnational fields or the international circulation of films (De Valck 2014; Duval 2023), without assuming the existence of a field whose autonomy has reached a degree comparable to other, more established cultural sectors, which are themselves subject to significant heteronomization. The NFC festival thus provides a unique opportunity to observe a collective effort to demarcate the cinematic field, led by a broad front of film exhibition actors opposed to this festival proposal, in a situation that can be described as “critical” (Allard et al. 2022). This moment was therefore conducive to reaffirming the boundaries of the cinematic field and the legitimate definition of “real film” by reactivating classic oppositions between, on the one hand, cinema films, singular works intended for viewers in a specific place dedicated to this practice alone (the movie theatre), and, on the other hand, streamed serial audiovisual products that are industrialized, formatted, and intended for more or less passive consumers in front of their small screens at home.19
- 20 Fédération nationale des cinémas français / National Federation of French Cinemas.
- 21 Fédération nationale des éditeurs de films / National Federation of Film Publishers, representing F (...)
- 22 Groupement national des cinémas de recherche / National Association of Experimental Cinemas.
- 23 Association pour la diffusion du cinéma Indépendant / Association for the Distribution of Independe (...)
- 24 Syndicat des distributeurs indépendants / Union of Independent Distributors.
- 25 Association française des cinémas art et essai / French Association of Arthouse Cinemas.
- 26 Distributeurs indépendants réunis européens / United European Independent Distributors.
- 27 Société des réalisatrices et réalisateurs de films / Society of Film Directors.
- 28 Syndicat des cinémas d’Art, de Répertoire et d’Essai / Union of Art, Repertory and Experimental Cin (...)
18The protest was being led by federations representing the dominant players in large-scale distribution and exploitation (“La Fédé” or FNCF,20 FNEF21) as well as associations representing the most “cutting-edge” and alternative arthouse cinema (GNCR,22 ACID,23 SDI24), those representing “general-interest” independent cinema (AFCAE,25 DIRE26), and associations of directors and filmmakers such as the SRF.27 Only the SCARE28 had a more mixed position, and its members include the theatres approached for the Netflix programming.
- 29 The TSA [taxe spéciale additionnelle], a levy on every cinema ticket—whether for a small French fil (...)
19Although the reaction was massive, the arguments mobilized differed according to organizations’ position within the film world. They advanced primarily economic and strategic reasons: first, the programming could be seen as a challenge to the French system of film financing, which rests in part on a principle of solidarity across the entire sector, regardless of the status of the actors involved (whether vertically integrated distributors or small independents).29 Second, the choice of date for the proposed festival was judged particularly ill-timed, as negotiations were then underway concerning the chronologie des médias, aimed at determining streaming platforms’ contributions to the financing and circulation of French works in exchange for a revision of release windows (following the films’ initial exclusive theatrical run). Finally, the festival was to take place just after cinemas had fully reopened, at a moment when attendance was still significantly depressed in the wake of pandemic-related public health measures.
- 30 Press release “Festival Netflix : la FNEF en appelle à une réponse politique” originally published (...)
20The two largest organizations—FNCF and FNEF, representing all theatres and distributors, and especially the national and regional circuits (Gaumont, Pathé, UGC, MK2, CGR, etc.)—emphasized in their own way the importance of maintaining a boundary between the big screen and the small screen. This was not expressed in terms of a debate over the respective artistic qualities of cinematic versus audiovisual works, but rather as a question of market legibility, particularly for audiences: in their words, it was a matter of “respecting the economy of two models of creation and distribution, that of audiovisual media and that of cinema. These are two complementary but different models, based on different economic exhibitors and timeframes, particularly in terms of broadcast schedules and contribution obligations.”30
21Whereas the economically dominant actors in exhibition restricted themselves to these considerations, those belonging to the more independent pole deliberately adopted an explicitly political stance, opposing the promotion of the multinational Netflix by independent theatres and thereby raising, more fundamentally, the question of how to define a cinematic work—technically, and even philosophically. In this respect, the controversy surrounding the Netflix festival can be read as a textbook case of struggles at the boundaries of a field of cultural production. As soon as they learned of Netflix’s proposal, the two main independent distributors’ unions, DIRE and SDI, issued a joint statement seeking to alert exhibitors tempted by the venture:
Do you realize the vicious circle you are getting yourselves into? Do you realize that a short-term boost in attracting audiences is medium-term suicide for our respective professions?
[…]
There is nothing backward-looking in this reaction—quite the opposite… It is a long-term vision of our trade. We must be able to continue discovering, nurturing, and promoting the films of directors—the young and not so young alike—in movie theatres.
- 31 Joint press release from DIRE and SDI, 25 October 2021.
Filmmakers, producers, exhibitors, the future of our professions is at stake today. Tomorrow will be too late.31
- 32 GNCR press release, 27 October 2021.
22The next day, an association of arthouse exhibitors, the GNCR, lent its support to the SDI and DIRE statement, adding a phrase that drew a parallel with the publishing sector: “Would an independent bookshop go and organize an Amazon festival?”32 On the same day, the Acid issued a statement that participating theatres perceived as the harshest attack against them, insofar as it excluded them from the cinematic field—even though they carried the official Art et Essai label—for having “abdicated” their historic role of defending cinematic diversity by lending legitimacy to a multinational whose undifferentiated supply of content ignored the specificity of cinema as a form:
Whatever one may think of Netflix productions, they have nothing to do with cinema. Even if buying a filmmaker’s name can “look like cinema,” it doesn’t make cinema. It has nothing to do with it. In the end, the “content” is presented on a display that offers indiscriminately, and ad nauseam, reality shows, series, documentaries, all in an inexorable logic of saturation—even suffocation—of the consumer.
That being the case, presenting these films in theatres as though they belonged to cinema, turning the theatre into a mere shop window, is to have renounced cinema itself as an art form and a space of encounter. It is to stop believing in it. It is to stop believing in the spectator and in their gaze. […]
All this might not be so serious if the movie theatres complicit in this distressing idea did not claim to support filmmaking. How can one claim to be an “arthouse” or even an “experimental” cinema when one has abandoned the very idea of art, experimentation, and research in favour of mass-market products and claims this gesture to be a sign of openness? That is sheer cynicism…
- 33 Press release “Qui a peur du cinéma,” ACID, 26 October 2021.
To those who refuse the responsibility that comes with the Art et Essai designation—responsibility for defending independence and diversity of works—let us say this: where they abdicate, we will continue to fight, for one simple reason: we are cinema, and this certainty grounds us, whether we are behind the camera or showing our films in theatres. It is for them to ask themselves whether they still belong to cinema at all.33
- 34 AFCAE press release, 27 October 2021.
- 35 Whether through the denunciation of systemic racism in content, funds allocated to creators belongi (...)
- 36 Netflix is regularly attacked by the far right as a “woke” platform.
23Beyond the incursion of actors from outside the world of cinema (both unaccustomed to the principles of excellence governing the field and not bound by the principle of financial solidarity), what was especially denounced was the artistic legitimacy lent to an eminently commercial project by the “complicit” theatres. Netflix’s project, according to its critics, was “to develop a compulsive, consumerist relationship with ‘audiovisual products,’ using as a guarantee a few works by big names in international cinema.”34 These critiques echo scholarly analyses that highlight the prestige strategies deployed by the platform—not so much to support a restricted pole of cultural production, but to make itself desirable. In addition to recruiting “big names,” foregrounding values of ethnic, gender, and sexual diversity35 is presented as a successful strategy to sustain a brand image aligned with the supposed profile of Netflix consumers: “young, urban, and connected” (Thuillas & Wiart 2023; Wiart 2022). The relationship between claims of diversity in works (whether through the characters represented or the professionals who produce them) and their status as autonomous works is far from straightforward and would require much further development. While such demands may appear external to the creative necessity itself—imposed by ideological, political, or even economic36 logics—they can also be interpreted as reflecting ethical considerations that go beyond sheer profit-seeking, in contrast with a platform such as Amazon, integrated as it is into broader e-commerce services.
24Faced with such an outcry, the theatres that had been approached backed out: once MK2, the most important player in the industry that had been contacted, decided to withdraw, the smaller theatres also pulled out: “We felt that, because of this mess, we were undermining relations between associations, and that Netflix was thinking ‘we’ve stirred up trouble without really meaning to’” (E3). After the fact, some exhibitors expressed doubts: “The central question is, did Netflix really intend to release these films, or was it just to test the waters?” (E3). According to another exhibitor, “They also knew that it would probably not be easy and that it was bound to stir up trouble in the profession” (E4).
25Netflix’s programming was thus not taken up by the arthouse theatres initially approached but instead ended up being given a few screenings at the Cinémathèque française in Paris and the Institut Lumière in Lyon. The announcement of this programming once again provoked strong reactions, though this time exclusively from the most independent players (GNCR, ACID, AFCAE, SRF). On 4 November, AFCAE published an open letter addressed to the boards of the Cinémathèque française and the Institut Lumière, as well as to the president of the CNC and the Minister of Culture, expressing concern that these “two associations, largely supported by public funds, are tasked with archiving, preserving, restoring, and showcasing works and artists—not with promoting a multinational corporation.” The GNCR, while joining other professional associations in welcoming the withdrawal of the arthouse theatres initially recruited, reiterated its condemnation of the legitimacy conferred by central consecrating institutions of the seventh art on a platform driven above all by commercial considerations. Here again, what is highlighted is a form of heteronomization of the cinematic field, illustrated by the explicit metaphor of the wolf in the sheepfold, and by comparisons with other industrial sectors (football, hospitality, etc.):
Like certain football clubs that, unable to make history, buy history, Netflix purchases its legitimacy and its cinephilia by multiplying the “cultural tokens” it offers to the artistic world, the media, and audiences. Commissioning major film auteurs who were nurtured at the teat of our screens (Jane Campion, Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, Bong Joon-Ho, Paolo Sorrentino, David Fincher…), partnering with MK2—with much fanfare—for the online release of great classics including the films of François Truffaut, sponsoring the Cinémathèque française to restore Abel Gance’s Napoléon, partnering—already—with the Festival Lumière, announced involvement in film education programs… Netflix pulls the wool over our eyes and plays the innocent lamb, but let us remember that in the Grimm brothers’ tale, the little goats meet a grim fate: they are devoured by the wolf.
- 37 GNCR statement following the announcement of the NFC programming at the Cinématique française and I (...)
How long before we see a giant Netflix banner draped across the façades of the Cinémathèque or the Fondation Lumière, just like the ACCOR group’s name emblazoned on the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy!?37
- 38 “Cannes films” are the films programmed in the various selections of the Cannes Film Festival.
26These reactions were perceived by the theatres approached as extremely violent, leaving them feeling “singled out.” Some statements were even read as “insults” to the usual work carried out at their theatres. They also reported extreme tension in their relations with their regular interlocutors—particularly distributors—or even pressure from “big” distributors of Cannes film38: “There was a kind of panic. I got insulting emails even before I had met with Netflix, things like, ‘You can’t do this, you’ll blow up the system.’ You could feel this was touching on something major that was fanning the flames of frustration, [shaking] the fragile solidarity between distributors and exhibitors” (E1).
Figure 2
Battling Butler (directed by Buster Keanon, 1926), poster designed by Roland Coudon, 1927.
Source: French National Library (BnF), Gallica.
27Given such widespread mobilization, which, as we have seen, was led by actors from various corners of the cinema sector, it is surprising that arthouse theatres decided to get involved in a project that they knew would provoke strong reactions (although they may not have anticipated the scale of what unfolded). Indeed, the main criticism levelled by independent associations is that the cinemas approached had abdicated their duty to defend cinematic diversity. It was this accusation that was felt most strongly and against which these cinemas defended themselves most vigorously, particularly in interviews. Ultimately, it can be said that the violence of this episode stems from the struggle over the notion of independence in the cinematic field, which is a major element of the nomos of this world, if not of all cultural worlds (Noël & Pinto 2018). My hypothesis is that it is possible to objectively analyse the positions taken by the theatres (successfully) approached by Netflix and show that, unlike the stances of the independent actors already mentioned (AFCAE, GNCR, SDI, DIRE), they reflect a certain conception of independence, which Netflix can—under certain conditions—embody.
28The theatres approached by Netflix are nationally recognized arthouse theatres with between four and ten screens and an average of 200,000 tickets sold per year (see table in appendix). These are also privately owned theatres, most of which are represented by the SCARE, and they present themselves as independent. One of the exhibitors contacted about the NFC programming—and opposed to the initiative from the outset (making her the only “selection error” in Netflix’s campaign, which she attributed to the fact that a member of her family works for Netflix)—said she found this selection of theatres “both clever and shocking,” in that these are “flagship theatres that attract audiences through their work and dedication, deeply committed to defending cinema” (E2).
- 39 See the Art et Essai classification notice available on the CNC website, which can be consulted by (...)
29Their symbolic recognition, at least from an institutional point of view, can be measured by the Art et Essai “score” they obtain in the classification process,39 which reflects both the content of their programming (number and diversity of screenings devoted to recommended arthouse films each year) and the richness of their theatre’s events and activities. This score determines the amount of the Art et Essai subsidy allocated to each cinema, as well as the awarding of labels attesting to the excellence of each cinema’s work (labels such as Recherche et découverte [Research & Discovery] for particularly cutting-edge arthouse programming, Jeune public [Young Audiences] or Patrimoine et répertoire [Heritage and Repertory]), which can be accompanied by bonuses if the theatre regularly screens short films or so-called “vulnerable” films, that is, films that receive little exposure. As these theatres hold multiple such labels and participate in European initiatives such as Europa Cinemas, they therefore receive the highest levels of national arthouse subsidies. They also regularly win “innovative cinema” or “cinema exhibitor of the year” awards presented by the CNC or the specialised press such as Le film français. Apart from several MK2 theatres in Paris approached for the NFC programming, the other theatres are all key cinemas located in or near regional cities, tending to be given priority by distributors in their national release plans, with regular negotiations with surrounding multiplexes for the release of the biggest arthouse films.
30These theatres’ communication and messaging40—which almost always present them as “independent” and sometimes “arthouse”—have the commonality of emphasizing how different their cinema’s programming, atmosphere, connection with their audience, and essentially the whole the nature of their activity, is from that of multiplexes—often marking this difference with humour: “A fine film boutique… run by a cheerful team of committed and eclectic film lovers”; “An independent cinema with full creative freedom”; “Ignoti nulla cupido and independent cinema guaranteed without popcorn or 3D.”41 Particular care is taken in preparing their published programmes, which often contain a large number of pages, frequently extend beyond the current week, sometimes up to six weeks in advance, are editorialized (i.e., include editorials and even reviews written by the cinema staff), and can be downloaded on the website and, in most cases, are also available in paper format, in the form of a “gazette” or “fanzine.”
31Outlining this profile allows us, by extension, to infer the types of theatres that were not approached. First, there are the national circuit theatres: Gaumont, Pathé, UGC, and CGR. Even though these theatres, when located in large city centres, adopt arthouse-like programming policies (original language versions, recommended films, discussions and events, etc.), they cannot be considered representative of the spirit of independent cinema.
32Another group that comes to mind is that of large arthouse theatres in big cities that belong to regional chains (such as Cinéville in western France). While this choice appears counterintuitive from a short-term strategy perspective, it can be explained primarily by the fact that it would have been politically impossible for the circuits and the major distribution and exhibition federations to which they belong to publicly support such a project, given the negotiations around the chronologie des médias discussed above. Furthermore, the aim here was to reap medium-term benefits by targeting a socially selected audience inclined toward intense cultural practices.
- 42 With the exception of the one “selection error” mentioned above.
33Although they are well represented among arthouse theatres, public theatres42 were not either, to our knowledge, approached to host the event. This can be explained first by their over-representation among the smallest venues (one to three screens), but also, as we will discuss below, by their model, which seems to exclude any possible correspondence between a platform’s positioning and their own characteristics: they receive varying degrees of support from local authorities to fulfil a range of public service missions (programming of high quality for a wide audience, controlled pricing, links with local actors, promotion of community life, etc.); and their positioning is sometimes considered ambiguous, somewhere between cultural institution and local business.
34The exhibitors who agreed to participate in the Netflix Film Club festival gave several (interrelated) justifications for this choice, citing: commercial reasons related to audience numbers at their theatres, strategic reasons to position themselves in the exhibition market, particularly in relation to the “big” players, and finally, reasons related to their own definition of their identity as independent exhibitors.
35First, they claim a certain clear-sightedness about Netflix’s motives, which they interpret in the same way as the other players mentioned above: as the desire to showcase its own brand by placing its productions in prestige cinemas before a socially select audience: “[Netflix knows that] we editorialize; we screen high-end films that attract higher-income audiences” (E1). Once any suspicion of naiveté is dispelled, these exhibitors trace their motivations back to their status as independents—a status they proudly assert and, in several respects, deny to those who attack them. In other words, programming a “Netflix festival” can, under certain conditions, be defended precisely in the name of these theatres’ independence. Moreover, they almost never describe themselves as arthouse theatres, a label that strikes them above all as an institutional category whose current boundaries they unanimously criticize. The dispute over whether to host the Netflix festival quickly re-ignited long-standing debates over the scope of France’s Art et Essai designation: the SCARE advocates a fairly restrictive definition (which they claim to embody), while the AFCAE defends a broader one (with this label regularly held by roughly half of French cinemas). This recurring critique of Art et Essai policy recalls the various functions the designation has served over its history—supporting the distribution of “quality” works, aiding independent exhibition, and bolstering regional cultural infrastructure (Pinto 2012). Seen as a betrayal of its original mission to uphold cinematic excellence, criticism is often directed at publicly funded theatres suspected of opportunistic programming and, ultimately, of bypassing normal market rules in an activity that is as commercial as it is cultural.
36From this perspective, their status as privately owned theatres is what justifies the claim that they alone shoulder real financial risk—measured, they point out, by their level of debt. More than the others, this is what entitles them to think in terms of market appeal and to adopt short- and medium-term strategies to (at least) regain and (ideally) surpass their pre-pandemic attendance rates. The fact that they have to balance their books without, as they put it, relying on local subsidies compels them to maintain what they describe as a “pragmatic” stance—one that embraces commercial arguments without subordinating them solely to the traditional mission of defending cinematic diversity. Being an independent cinema, then, means pursuing strategies that both rationalize economic risk—especially in contrast to the dominant market players (in this case, national or regional distribution circuits)—and demonstrate autonomy in programming choices, a stance that the Netflix festival would, in a sense, serve to affirm. In this light, linking their theatre’s image to that of Netflix can appear, within the arthouse sector, as an iconoclastic move—precisely the kind of position the truly independent exhibitor ought to take.
- 43 Action plans are regularly funded by the CNC, such as the Fund for the Development of Youth Audienc (...)
37One of these economic strategies is the deliberate pursuit of a younger audience. The Netflix festival is seen as a chance to reach them and to contribute to the renewal of moviegoing publics—a recurring priority for the industry and especially for Art et Essai houses, whose audiences are on average older than the moviegoing population as a whole.43 Showing Netflix films is, for some, a way not to seem “has-been” and to counter the symbolic pigeonholing that casts innovative offerings as the preserve of platforms while associating cinemas—apart from blockbuster venues—with more outdated programming and viewing formats.
To us, we’re really excited about the idea, and we know it can work with a slightly younger crowd. But it’s finding that balance between the more classic arthouse audience that will fill our afternoon screenings, and an audience that’s more interested in events and special screenings—we don’t have 150 of those to offer. So when something that’s kind of a big deal like this comes along, we usually jump on it, yeah. (E4)
- 44 Especially since the share of streaming platform users aged 50 and over has increased since then (C (...)
38The initiative was also aimed at faithful older viewers who have been slow to return after the pandemic44 and whose share among platform subscribers has grown sharply. These exhibitors thought this programming could spark their curiosity as well. Finally, showing Netflix films on the big screen was also aimed at audiences who do not subscribe to Netflix, the idea being precisely to demonstrate that these films should be seen on the big screen, just like any other film (whether because they bear the signature of a “great” director or simply because they are conceived with a cinematic intention). In short, hosting the Netflix festival is presented as a way to subvert the platform’s own logic, allowing cinephiles to avoid taking out subscriptions merely to access a very narrow slice of its catalogue.
And then, at the end of the day, some films have real appeal. We know Netflix promotes them heavily—they’re its flagship titles—and people are going to want to see them. I think that if they have the chance to see them in a theatre, they’ll come see them in a theatre. We’re all, to some extent, aware of Netflix’s power, even if it’s clearly waning a little, but when a film doesn’t play in theatres at all, it feels like we’re pushing people to subscribe to Netflix, because otherwise they have no other way to see it. (E4)
- 45 This was the case, for example, with the film Coda, a French-American adaptation of the film La fam (...)
- 46 This argument may evoke the situation of French cinema at the turn of the 2010s, when distributors (...)
39Another justification, which can also be read as a medium-term commercial strategy, is the desire not to leave the “big theatres” with a monopoly on collaborations with platforms—partnerships that, in these exhibitors’ view, will sooner or later become standard practice in the exhibition sector. From this perspective, the reaction of the circuits, voiced through the FNCF and the FNEF, seems questionable, as, at the time of the interviews, some of them had already screened films produced by their own companies and distributed by platforms.45 Offering platforms an opening is, then, a way to counter this perceived tacit alliance between the dominant players in both digital distribution and theatrical exhibition: “It’s better for these films to be shown in independent theatres, with context and discussion, because the day they start playing in the big national circuits, it’ll be on a massive scale and nobody will be able to do anything about it.”46
- 47 This was similar to the mobilization in 2015 of arthouse cinemas (some of which had agreed to progr (...)
- 48 While more and more independent distributors are accepting that theatres practice multi-programming (...)
40In this strategy of repositioning within the cinematic field, another tactic is to rename the enemy. The same idea came up in several interviews: “Disney strikes me as far more worrying than Netflix” (E6). Focusing the fight for cinematic diversity solely on resisting Netflix is therefore seen as misguided, since almost all arthouse theatres show Disney films, and some even petition the national film mediator to obtain copies.47 In this sense, they believe that the ethics of independence cannot be reduced to rejecting Netflix alone; it also means refusing to programme certain blockbusters in order to “make room” for other films. One interviewee stressed, for example, that he turned down Spielberg’s last film (The Fabelmans, distributed by Disney), which effectively freed up twenty screening slots during the week,48 unlike many arthouse cinemas that chose to programme it. Another exhibitor said: “We decided not to book Top Gun. I would have felt bad about it, like I was chasing box office at the expense of ethics [...] Sure, we can show Star Wars or 007, but at that time we had four Cannes titles to show” (E1).
41More fundamentally, these theatres justify programming Netflix films as a response to the reshaping of Hollywood’s film supply. Indeed, until the 2010s, a significant number of arthouse theatre admissions were generated by American “auteur blockbusters,” such as the films of Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Sofia Coppola. But as that niche has shifted toward circuit theatres and streaming platforms (Sinwell 2020), the economic balance of independent cinemas in France has been directly affected. As one exhibitor put it, it would be absurd to forbid oneself from screening good Netflix titles at a time when “the big directors are moving to Netflix, and when we have the chance to show their films on the big screen, while still paying the TSA levy” (E4). Beyond this reconfiguration of the US supply—a factor completely absent from media coverage of the event but raised in several interviews—some exhibitors speak more broadly of a migration of “interesting” content to streaming platforms, and a certain weariness with French films. Speaking about the hosting of the festival by the Cinémathèque française and the Institut Lumière, one interviewee also described the drastic change in what distributors now offer him:
Because these are people living off public subsidies—both of them—super official institutions that don’t need this to survive, that don’t need this to exist. Whereas we do; we do need these films. In fact, week after week we can see it: we’re hardly programming any American films anymore. (E6)
- 49 This can be seen, for example, in the account of a Parisian programmer interviewed at a critical mo (...)
42We can see, then, that commercial arguments are being used in certain ways —framed as resistance to dominant players and as evidence of genuine risk-taking—and they never eclipse the defence of “independent” values that professional associations invoked to denounce the festival and stigmatize the theatres that had agreed to participate. Because the banner of independence was so forcefully claimed by the opposition, the exhibitors say they found the reaction of the ACID (quoted at length above) particularly hard to take: “don’t condemn us for playing the game set by the big guys” (E1). For these programmers, rejecting Netflix’s proposal outright amounts to clinging to the routine practices of exhibition that “true” independents are trying to break away from by “breaking the codes” and “taking risks”—economic as well as symbolic (risking strained relations with regular distributor partners, whether independent or vertically integrated, and worrying about how their loyal audience might react). Moreover, choosing to screen these films is presented as an affirmation of the freedom of the geste de programmation [curatorial gesture], another nomos in independent exhibition, treated as a creative act in its own right, an activity far more valorized in cinema than mere theatre operation. Exhibitors frequently highlight this creative dimension in public, even though in more private settings—interviews or professional meetings—they speak more about the intense constraints that weigh on programming choices.49
So, in fact, there was real programming work involved, and the central idea was to put the movie theatre back at the heart of the game. To do that with these films—that are cinema films, made by cinema directors—and finally give audiences the chance to see them in cinema—that was it, full stop. (E6)
- 50 See, for example, the book of interviews between Netflix founder Reed Hastings and management exper (...)
- 51 See the Film français dossier (no. 4146) “Netflix, une décennie française” dedicated to Netflix’s t (...)
43Finally, their tendency to downplay Netflix’s hegemonic status—especially compared with the historic Hollywood studios (Warner, Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal)—needs to be read alongside Netflix’s own “revolutionary”50 strategy of projecting itself as a beacon of independence. The company’s messaging highlights supposedly alternative production practices (Tryon 2015; Zarka 2023) and an inclusive ethos (Wiart 2022), which it claims give new talent a real chance.51
44This “ethics” can be read as the product of three overlapping factors: the particular ethos of the theatres in question, their position in the market, and the specific ways in which Netflix seeks to heteronomize the cinematic field. Furthermore, to a certain extent, it can explain the elective affinities between the stances taken by certain independent cinemas and those of Netflix—affinities that were not, at first glance, self-evident.
45Presented by associations defending independent cinema as a betrayal, hosting the Netflix festival was, on the contrary, embraced by these exhibitors as a sign of programming autonomy and of mistrust toward the knee-jerk, consensus-driven opposition to players like Netflix, and toward allies they view as overly institutionalized (the publicly funded arthouse theatres). Just as one can identify a common front among French film-distribution actors, albeit with varying approaches, one can also see parallels between the justifications offered by the theatres approached by Netflix and the platform’s own rhetoric for positioning itself in the audiovisual field—above all around the notion of independence. Thus, just as Netflix presents itself as embodying independent modes of production and distribution, in contrast with the traditional Hollywood studios (Tzioumakis 2023), these theatres defend their participation in the festival as an expression of their own ethical, economic, and artistic position as independent cinemas. Beyond merely cataloguing the reasons they give for joining what might at first appear to be an unnatural alliance, one can probe the deeper logic of their stance. The hypotheses we arrive at do not suggest that the exhibitors share Netflix’s corporate aims: they are hardly naïve about them and remain far removed from these aims in their own practices (most are not Netflix subscribers, are largely unfamiliar with its programs, many scarcely watch series at all, and some do not even own a television). Rather, what emerges is the distance that separates these exhibitors from the most vehement opponents of such collaboration. Speaking of publicly funded cinemas, well represented in professional associations, these exhibitors claim that they do not “speak the same language” (E6) and feel “less represented by the AFCAE” (E3), to the point of considering leaving several times, whereas, of the privately run independent exhibitors organized within the SCARE, they stress, “we are people who resemble one another.” By contrast, the exhibitor contacted “unsuccessfully” sums up the cultural gap regarding Netflix: “It just isn’t their culture—neither their audience’s nor, more specifically, that of the publicly funded cinemas” (E2).
46To understand Netflix’s somewhat tentative strategy with the festival initiative, especially at a time when convergence between platforms and movie theatres in France remains incomplete, we see here the importance of narrowing our focus step by step: from the international level (foreign platforms entering the French context), to the national level (the reactions of France’s exhibition sector), and finally to the local level, inside the specific theatres concerned. Here, we focus on the exhibitors who run, programme, and animate these venues, finding striking continuities in their personal trajectories. Across the board, one finds, among their forebears, occupations that suggest a disposition toward commerce. In every case there is either an early discovery of culture, often at school, or proximity to culture, transmitted through a family member, yet most pursue studies closer to the economic sphere, such as law, business, or marketing. This type of background is far less systematic in other segments of the arthouse sector, particularly on the public side.
47One of them completed a first year of law, then a year of journalism. He obtained a vocational training certificate (CAP) in projection at his local cinema, where he was very involved, before buying the cinema from the former owner who had introduced him to cinema and especially cinema operation. His mother was a homemaker, and his father, a computer scientist, designed computer software. His siblings also took commercial paths: one brother works in a start-up, another manages the cinema bar, and one sister was, at the time of interview, studying law. The grandparents’ generation also played an important role in shaping his career path: one grandfather was a (“totally self-made”) entrepreneur in the ironmongery business, while the other was one of the first graduates of the HEC business school and went on to become a senior executive at an international group. It was through this grandfather, an active member of the Taizé ecumenical association, that the exhibitor was exposed to cultural productions, including books, at an early age.
48The parents of another exhibitor ran a large shoe business in Mulhouse, had no higher education and, according to him, “had no culture whatsoever.” Raised by his grandmother because of his parents’ long working hours, this exhibitor described the cinema as a “cocoon” where he took in ”countless films at the neighbourhood theatre—pretty incredible things [that forged him] as an individual, very early on seeing things forbidden to those under 16, Pasolini, et cetera.” After studying business in Paris, obtaining a technician’s certificate (BTS) in communication and a bachelor’s degree in marketing, he began working in a community cinema in eastern France, as a conscientious objector. He learned the profession “on the job” before “taking over” a theatre located in a large city in the same region.
- 52 Associations mentioned above that claim to be the most independent in film distribution (GNCR, ACID (...)
- 53 This public film school (formerly IDHEC/Institut des hautes études cinématographiques), which plays (...)
49Exhibitors linked the Utopia network are unique in combining a propensity to commerce and interest in culture with a distinctly political conception of their work, akin to the “anarchist” spirit of Utopia’s founders. The profile of one of the founding members of the Utopia network, who is included in our sample and has been studied several times due to the importance and consistency of the model of independence he embodies (Alexandre 2008; Bourgatte 2018; Pinto 2012), confirms this combination of “small-scale” independent tendencies and cultural awareness acquired “through side doors.” His openly anarchist leanings, part of the brand image of Utopia theatres, explain what he himself calls an “allergy” to collective organizations (the “Fédé,” “research associations,”52 and the AFCAE) and to predictable unanimity (such as the reflexive condemnations of Netflix). Raised in the Manche [TN: region of Normandy] by a single mother who worked as a tailor’s assistant and then as a seamstress in a clothing store, and by an aunt, in an environment devoid of culture, he discovered cinema through his French teachers and joined a film club in Clermont-Ferrand, which offered meetings with cinema professionals. Furthermore, even though today’s professionalization of exhibitor careers (through university courses in curatorial cinema programming and distribution or through the “Distribution, Exhibition” course offered by La Fémis53) tends to standardize practices, there remains a distinctive “Utopia touch” remains among younger exhibitors who take over or open theatres within the network. This shared culture is particularly evident in their insistence on private ownership as a condition of independence, and in programming and events designed to foster civic or even overtly political discussion:
Well, for one thing, Utopia represents a deliberate choice to remain a private company … But that’s linked to Utopia’s history, in that from the moment we weren’t receiving any help from politicians, and were even being fought against by politicians, betting on our independence was always more rewarding, especially if it worked. Never needing local subsidies, never putting ourselves in the position of having to ask for them. And if we can’t make it work, it means we shouldn’t be doing it and we should stop.
[…] What we claim—still today—is basically this: You help us get set up, you help us find a venue, and we handle the renovations ourselves. Maybe you can help us line up a few co-funders, a bit from the Region, a bit from the Département for the building work. But for day-to-day operations, we manage on our own. Because it’s not … It’s up to us. That’s our job.” (E5)
50Like the other exhibitors in the sample, one of these (younger) Utopia-affiliated exhibitors describes a fairly middle-class family environment with a strong propensity to commerce. He describes his grandparents as “established bourgeois,” noting in particular a grandfather who was a colonel. His father, a math teacher, and his mother, a computer scientist at an architecture school, together created IT training tools for businesses before setting up a professional training company. However, he recalls a major break with his parents, embodied, in his view, by his choice, at university to study first sociology at Lyon-2 and then at Paris-3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle), and then film, an art he “discovered through Cinéma de minuit [midnight movies].” In the end, his “only real degree” was the projectionist’s vocational training certificate (CAP). Relying on the financial stability of his partner, a civil servant (senior inspector at the Ministry of Public Finance), he approached his work as a cinema exhibitor in an almost playful and militant way:
But really the main goal is to see films without paying—in fact, to be paid to watch films. And then to get people to come see the films we’ve chosen. […] And to open the cinema so we can do all sorts of crazy things with activists of every kind, and meet lots of people, actually. We meet tons of people, and it’s great. (E5)
- 54 Translator’s note: A long-running French cop soap.
51Another exhibitor linked to the Utopia network likewise points to a strong commercial streak combined with a taste for culture. Describing his family as “fairly upper middle class,” he mentions his mother, a medical secretary, and his father, a “company owner” who set up a business school and then a small amusement park before becoming an employee at the French unemployment agency (Pôle Emploi), grandparents who owned a large toy store, and a grandfather who was a gynaecologist. He grew up with a father who was an avid reader, “even if he had big gaps when it came to cinema.” He says he grew up “with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Navarro54 flicks on TV.” He then describes what can be read as an awakening to other possibilities:
- 55 Directed by Lars von Trier, 1996.
On the other hand, I had an older brother who was very good at discovering talent, both in music and cinema, and […] one day he took me to the Utopia cinema in Avignon, which was a place I never went to. For me, going to the movies meant McDonald’s and Pathé. He took me to Utopia to see Breaking the Waves,55 and I remember that I didn’t understand a thing about the film, but it sparked something in me, made me think, “There’s something here […] So after that, I started going to Utopia all the time, watching lots of films. And then, little by little, I went off to study, first in Montpellier, where I studied sociology. (E4)
52By contrast, the career of the exhibitor who opposed hosting the Netflix festival in the public cinema she manages in a relatively affluent Paris suburb shows much stronger intellectual and cultural leanings from the outset. She considers books “like second nature—yeah. Books, films, everything. Exhibitions, theatre…” Her own path was, as she puts it, “very classic, with long university studies” in languages (an associate’s degree [DEUG] in Italian and a bachelor’s in English). Her mother was an English teacher before “taking up painting.” In her senior year of high school, she began “doing little things related to cinema.” Her father was a film journalist, so she says she has always been “immersed in it”: she went to festivals, “did a bit of pseudo-journalism, or at least freelance work here and there,” while also doing “a bit of teaching, French and English.” She says she then “fell into exhibition by chance. Unaware that it involved so many things, such as HR and budgets, compared to her vague ideas of freelance writing, writing with a programme, writing based on texts, [she] started out as a youth audience manager.” She now runs a public theatre in the inner suburbs of Paris and holds various positions of responsibility in the field (member of the board of directors of the SCARE and deputy president of the FNCF).
53The structural opposition traced by these trajectories—notably between public versus private exhibition—highlights contrasting blends of commerce and culture, themselves rooted in different forms of accumulated cultural capital and inherited commercial dispositions. These combinations underpin distinct definitions of independence, which, as we have tried to show, can enable or constrain choices about collaborations that still appear risky—even transgressive—within the French film-exhibition world.
Figure 3
Programme published on the website of the Cinémathèque française, 2021. Image: Don’t look up (directed by Adam McKay, cinematographer: Linus Sandgren).
Source: Cinémathèque française (screenshot, last access on the website: 1st Decembre 2025).
- 56 Director of the Institut Lumière and Secretary General of the Cannes Film Festival, whose Board of (...)
- 57 Henri Langlois, the charismatic founder of the Cinémathèque française in 1936 with Jean Mitry and G (...)
- 58 Partnerships with large private companies are evident in the awarding of several film prizes by maj (...)
- 59 €19.4 million in 2022 out of a budget of €28.6 million (source: Cinémathèque française activity rep (...)
- 60 Like Abel Gance’s Napoleon, the first part of which was restored and presented at Cannes Classics i (...)
54The war within the exhibition industry ultimately did not take place, as the theatres initially contacted declined Netflix’s offer following the backlash analysed here. However, the strong imprint left by this episode remains evident even several years later: in informal conversations, professionals still bring it up when referring to certain movie theatres. The programming ended up being hosted by the Cinémathèque française and the Institut Lumière. At the Cinémathèque, in what was billed as a “Netflix retrospective,” all of the films initially proposed by the platform were screened, with two of them (Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up) showing simultaneously on all three screens. The Institut Lumière announced a “special programme” of the same nine titles, paired with a roundtable led by Thierry Frémaux56 on the broader issue of streaming platforms. It is the specific status of these venues that allows for the play with the boundaries of the cinematic field in order to accommodate this programming choice, especially after the violent reactions it provoked within the industry. Their position is ambiguous: they are central institutions for the consecration of the seventh art in France due to their indispensable heritage role, but they operate outside the traditional exhibition system. Both claim a political lineage—invoking, for example, the famous Langlois affair57 in the case of the Cinémathèque française—while also pursuing a policy of prestige58 (complete with luxury-brand sponsorship, notably from the Kering group). They emphasize their status as private associations, despite being heavily subsidized,59 and they have already partnered with Netflix on film-restoration projects.60 It is precisely their special status as film libraries that they use to justify hosting the Netflix programming:
- 61 Festival presentation page on the Institut Lumière website, December 2021.
We would not have taken this programming at our regular Lumière cinemas, because it’s important to support films in theatrical release, but the Institut is the right venue for it. The films Netflix proposes—like the Scorsese or the Cuarón that we have shown—are elevated by projection conditions that no television set can match.61
55Even so, the initiative provoked a new wave of sharp reactions, both from the associations that had already mobilized against Netflix programming in arthouse cinemas (issuing another round of blistering press releases) and from exhibitors who had been ultimately discouraged from showing it. As one of them put it:
It’s really a disastrous signal sent by the government: it’s really giving them a platform. What a crazy idea to show these films in these two super official institutions, because these are people who live off public subsidies. [...] They don’t need it to survive, but we do! [...] Thierry Frémeaux, the King, the big shot, that’s fine, but programming it in a dozen arthouse theatres was considered scandalous. What hypocrisy! (E6)
56As we can see, this final twist rehashed the issues of qualification, demarcation, and positioning in the cinematic market analysed here, between public and private, independent and mainstream, cinema and audiovisual, virtue(s) (defence of art, “diversity,” the small, the deserving) and disloyalty (commerce, counterfeit, opportunism). These lines of demarcation carry both symbolic rewards (being recognized as a guardian of cinematic diversity, attracting discerning audiences) and economic stakes (subsidies, access to public labels, the chance to broaden potential audiences). This programming project sparked a fierce uproar because it was visible to the general public, but it is part of a process of “normalization” linked to the gradual integration of platforms into the French film and audiovisual financing system, and symbolic legitimization through the production of films by a few big names and the purchase of catalogues of works, resulting in what is now described as a “cordial agreement” between Netflix and the film and audiovisual industry in France (Bullich & Schmitt 2022). Examining this uproar ultimately reveals transfers of economic and symbolic capital between actors who seem, at first glance, heterogeneous. Far from being sudden ruptures, the intrusion of platforms into the cinematic field rests on the social conditions that make it possible—conditions rooted in the routine operating modes of the industries in question, even as the intrusion further entrenches these very modes.