Film festivals offer fans the chance to see some of the latest new movies and also see the stars up close. While itβs easy to imagine that these festivals are in competition with the top streaming services, there are more links between than you might have realized.
Netflix Launches New Series and Movies at Top Festivals
Not every film festival welcomes streaming services. For instance, the Cannes event is heavily focused on French cinema production and doesnβt accept Netflix premieres for this reason. However, the streaming giant has found a better reception for its content at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
This is where theyβll be revealing a number of their new series, such as the Hindi-language Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. Set in the Indian state of Bihar, it follows the adventures of a police officer who gets caught up in a web of corruption when chasing a dangerous criminal.
The drama film Qala will also be shown here, together with the first showing of Fauda in Asia. This festival will also include the Indian premiere of Guillermo del Toroβs Pinocchio, featuring Gregory Mann and Ewan McGregor.
ThisΒ 2022 streaming wrap-up confirms that in April, Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in a decade, but the release of the fourth season of Stranger Things helped them to recover and gain more subscribers than the amount theyβd lost. It soon became the most streamed show in the English language, taking into account the first 28 days after its release.
Amazon Prime Video Take One Award
The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has been working with Amazon Prime Video since 2021, leading to the Amazon Prime Video Take One Awards taking place as part of this event. 2022 saw the 35th TIFF take place, and the second awards linked to Amazon Prime were part of it.
Itβs aimed at new filmmakers who live in Japan and have created short movies of 15 minutes or less running time that havenβt been released commercially. The two-month period for submissions for the 2022 TIFF brought forward 83 entries that were then whittled down to just seven finalists.
The top prize is one million yen and the chance to work with Amazon Studios to create a movie. Included in the shortlist were the films A World I See, Falling in Love, House on the Ocean Floor, Barefoot, Calm Time, Specimens, and The Refrigerator Thief.
Yet, it ended in disappointment when the panel of experts declared that they were unable to find a worthy winner for this award. Jury president Yukisada Isao mentioned that each film had merits but that none of them took the imaginative leaps necessary. He mentioned The Refrigerator Thief as having a βcertain sparkβ but lamented a lack of the quality seen last year.
These examples give us an idea of how streaming services have gone mainstream and are now a part of different film festivals. We can expect these links to grow even further in the future as streaming companies look for different ways to build up their profiles and showcase their content.