(Toulouse) The actress, screenwriter and director Agnès Jaoui estimated Wednesday that “the stranglehold of the platforms on the authors” of cinema is “quite serious”, because they “recreated Hollywood” by transforming them into “employees”.
Posted at 2:41 p.m.
With the pandemic, “film productions and distributors are having a terrible time. Added to this is the stranglehold of the platforms on the authors. It’s pretty serious […] They recreated Hollywood, ”she denounced during her first press conference as president of the Toulouse Cinémathèque.
“Having had to deal with platforms, I decided to stop, because I have always been free to write and make films, and I intend to stay that way,” said Agnès Jaoui, believing that platforms hinder the creativity and turn filmmakers into “employees”.
Succeeding director Robert Guédiguian as president of this national film library, where she was elected on December 14 for three years, she “dreams” of promoting encounters between different audiences and of honoring forgotten women directors.
“I really want meetings to take place, cross-functionalities, that we can make music, take pictures, meet audiences, different ages” for “a real exchange, a real mix because I hate ghettos, ”she underlined.
Agnès Jaoui, who in 2018 denounced the lack of women at the Césars and Cannes, would also like to “honor women who have made films”, because “if there are no books, journalists , art historians and projections that highlight them, we forget them ”.
This committed director, who called to vote against Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential election, also denounced the current “fight of who is the most far-right”, deeming it “terrifying”.
Robert Guédiguian, who has chaired the Cinémathèque since 2016, told AFP that he had asked Agnès Jaoui to succeed him because “not only is she a filmmaker, but also an actress”.
“An actor is brilliant, intelligent, he knows the history of cinema, etc. A producer we don’t know who knows, a director we hardly know […] What we see is all the same the actors, ”he added.
Asked about his points in common with Agnès Jaoui, he underlined their idea of a “cinema that cares about the public” and “that popular cinema can be great art”.