There is something beautiful, and even almost moving, in seeing the Municipal Theater of Bastia full to bursting with people sharing a desire for cinema, in a post-Covid period, when many are abandoning dark rooms to watch films. home. The “Arte Mare” film festival opened this Friday, September 30. He is celebrating his 40th birthday.
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An event, like all those linked to the seventh art for several months, faced with the current crisis in the sector, between falling attendance in theaters and the pre-eminence of streaming platforms. But for the Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, president of the festival jury, and whose excellent last film “As Bestas” crossed the 300,000 admissions mark in France, it is the cinemas that must be helped and not the platforms. : “There must be room for everyone, but to have room for everyone, you have to help the weak part which is now the cinema hall.”
“The experience of seeing a film at home, on a platform or on a DVD, it’s not the same at all. It’s not against the platforms, but we must not help them, we must help the movie theater”
Rodrigo Sorogoyen, president of the jury of the “Arte Mare” festivalat franceinfo
But fighting against the platforms is undoubtedly a dated fight, even already lost. The two models must exist together and complement each other, according to the president of “Arte Mare”, Michèle Corrotti. “We can’t redo history, it is what it isshe explains. The role of platforms has steadily increased. This taste for films must continue to make you want to go and see with others [personnes] in a room this unique experience of sharing emotions.”
And it turns out that Allindi, a streaming platform dedicated to Corsican and Mediterranean films, launched in 2020, is precisely a partner of the festival. “We are convinced of something, it is that the cinema should not be confined to the telephone, the tablet, the television, the computerexplains Gérôme Bouda, one of its founders. The cinema must live on the big screen, but not only in the room.”
Allindi organizes public screenings. “In fact, we consider that we share experiences that are films with the public. We think that the supports are complementary, because we can very well go to see a film at the cinema and want to show it to our granddaughter. -mother, to her friends who were not there on the day of the screening. We are more on this vision of access to films which would be dynamic”says Gérôme Bouda.
First support films in theaters to then give them a second life, including economically, online. It is undoubtedly the most virtuous model possible in a sector so competitive and full of doubt.