It’s getting tight for the film law. The industry is fighting for the streaming millions – but do Swiss filmmakers know what they want?
You watch Netflix at home, popcorn is everywhere – as is the mess that goes with it.
The Swiss film hopes for Netflix, Netflix hopes for better times: While the industry longs for an investment obligation for streaming providers, customers are running away from the market leader. Netflix recently reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers, and two million users are expected to increase in the second quarter.
There are many reasons, from the Russian market, which has broken away from the group, to competition from the general store Amazon. In addition, the pandemic is subsiding, people are going out more often. Maybe people are also plagued by general spring streaming fatigue, they say: The series were better too. Or Netflix is now simply too “woke”, as Elon Musk says.
Whatever it is, the company from Los Gatos, California, is having a hangover, and one may ask oneself: is the Swiss film actually playing the wrong card?
Sure: proclaiming the end of the streaming age would be nonsense. Netflix is in the midst of a major crisis, but that doesn’t mean the streaming services as such are drying up. Netflix, Disney, Sky or Amazon are to reinvest four percent of their sales in Switzerland in the country: Whether this would flush the CHF 18 million estimated by the Federal Council into the local film industry or one or two million less is not the crucial point.
The obsession with streaming is problematic, the boom is reaching its limits, and in the heated regulatory discussion about the law, one question is not given enough attention: Have cinemas been forgotten? How would you be affected by a “Lex Netflix”?
Scorsese is not Swiss
Proponents like to emphasize that the amazing thing about the investment obligation is that it doesn’t cost anyone a penny. Because it is by no means a tax, no matter how tirelessly the other side tries to use the concept of battle. The concern about a significant increase in subscription prices is also not justified. Nevertheless, everything has its price – and in the end, it is to be feared, the cinemas will pay here.
Because once you’ve got your ideological elbows in, look at it soberly: what exactly happens when you say yes? The streaming services have various options for meeting their investment obligations: either they produce in Switzerland, buy the exploitation rights to Swiss films, or pay a replacement fee that goes into the state subsidy fund.
Everyone wants Swiss Netflix productions, finally international flair! Forget: Netflix produces for – Netflix. Cinema productions would not be realized with the financial support. Because a streaming portal does not want to sell cinema tickets, but subscriptions. Sometimes the companies soften, Martin Scorsese can say: I work with Netflix, but I still want my film to be in the cinemas. A Stefan Haupt can’t do that.
Now nobody is being forced into their Netflix happiness. If you want, you can continue to produce for the cinema. If he still finds comrades-in-arms. This can be observed not least in Germany: the streaming services provide employment with their large-scale productions, which is of course meritorious: a long-term series project offers financial security for an assistant director, a sound engineer or an actor. On the other hand, film producers in Switzerland are already complaining about a lack of staff.
Number 1 is the Polish erotic film
The argument that, thanks to the investments, one day more young people would be trained in film professions seems sought-after. On Netflix, you might be able to watch movies at 1.5x speed: film technicians can’t be produced in fast-forward. So if the big streaming services were to produce in this country, filmmakers who work for the cinema would be at a disadvantage.
In addition: Do Swiss filmmakers know what they wish for? The American corporations aren’t taking it easy, and creative people shouldn’t hope for too much freedom. Streamers are mass-produced, Swiss filmmakers are under illusions.
Yes, there are outstanding series projects, the proponents of the template like to spell them out: “La casa de papel”, “Lupin”, “Ozark”. But the image of the streaming services that indulge in the art of film still seems to be trying hard. The core business of the portals is distraction goods, and the public wouldn’t want it any other way: the most popular title on Netflix in Switzerland at the moment is the Polish erotic film “365 Days: This Day”. It’s not bad, but you should know what you’re getting yourself into: Instead of “Zwingli” and “Monte Verità”, soft porn – let off steam, dear Swiss filmmakers!
Film still from the Netflix series «Lupin», with Omar Sy as Assane Diop.
Perhaps the streaming providers are better advised to buy the rights to existing films and series, that’s done quickly, there’s little to be said against it: you secure the most promising Swiss titles early on, graze the field. Films such as “Platzspitzbaby”, “Zwingli” or “Wolkenbruch” would then no longer be shown in cinemas, but would instead be published directly as content on the platforms.
Swiss conflict avoidance
It can be argued that the couch is more comfortable than the cinema chair. But one shouldn’t delude oneself: the loss of the local draft horses would be devastating for the cinemas, but also for the distributors. Concerns can be heard behind closed doors, but no one likes to speak out publicly – is it the fear of being placed in the other side’s camp? The fear of alienating colleagues in the industry? A basic Swiss fear of conflict?
The vote will be tight. The Swiss film has a bad image, the opponents of the template mock the local work: It’s annoying, you want to put people in the cinema. Because the Swiss film is good. He celebrates festival successes almost non-stop.
The Zürcher brothers (“The Girl and the Spider”) and Cyril Schäublin (“Unrueh”) have won important prizes at the Berlinale, Ursula Meier has been involved internationally for years, Simon Jaquemet and Basil da Cunha prove that even edgy things from the Switzerland can come, and with his banker thriller “Azor” Andreas Fontana made a film that was celebrated like rarely by the “New York Times” and the “Guardian”. Only in Switzerland did he hardly have any spectators. That’s a problem. Millions of streaming people don’t change that.