The Streaming Era

Streaming began in 2007, and by 2013 streaming platforms had started producing their own films. Of everything that happened here, what this map finds most interesting is that the festivals split in opposite directions. In 2017, a film made for streaming entered the Cannes competition, and France's theatrical industry pushed back hard. From the following year, 2018, Cannes added a condition: to compete, a film had to get a theatrical release in France. Behind this was a French rule requiring a long gap between a film's theatrical release and its availability on streaming. Around the same time, Venice welcomed streaming films in. Italy had no equivalent regulation. It wasn't a matter of taste — differences in national systems split the two festivals apart. Elsewhere on this map, I've written about how three festivals were born out of politics. Eighty years on, festivals still stand on institutions.