This year’s Venice Film Festival is the most star-studded in recent memory. The list of A-listers heading to the Lido’s red carpet — Brad Pitt and George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Jenna Ortega, Daniel Craig, Joachim Phoenix and Lady Gaga — boggles the mind.
But the international film journalists attending this year’s festival are complaining they are being shut out of this celebrity feast, with studios and PR agents blocking access to stars for press interviews. Few of the top VIPs in Venice this year are doing international press interviews or taking part in “junkets” where the cast of a movie does sit-down interviews with journalists from international outlets. Pitt, Jolie, Clooney, Phoenix and many more will only be doing the official festival press conference and nothing else. Tim Burton and the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice walked the Venice red carpet for the world premiere of the Warner Bros. feature on Wednesday, but the studio junket was held in London on Thursday.
For international film journalists, most of them freelance writers, the “no interview policy” — journalists can only shout out questions to stars on the red carpet in the hopes of getting a short sound bite — means no exclusive interviews to sell to their regional papers, online magazines or TV and radio shows.
“It’s a disaster,” says Marco Consoli, an Italian freelance film journalist. “We live off these interviews with the big names, it pays for us to come here and to cover the smaller, independent films as well.”
Consoli, together with a group of more than 50 international film festival journalists, on Thursday published an open letter protesting the “no interview policy.” The letter was published on the Facebook group International Film Festivals Journalists, whose more than 700 members also include film publicists and festival programmers.
“The Venice Film Festival has just started and we know already that many films with a world premiere at the festival this year will not give any interviews to the press. Zero, zilch, nada,” the letter reads. “This decision, influenced by the studios and supported by many publicists, puts in jeopardy an entire category of journalists, particularly freelancers, who with their passionate and relentless work often help in the success of films, give voice and prestige to directors and actors, and contribute to igniting the debate on projects that aim for the Oscars, the Golden Globes and other prestigious awards.”
Veteran film publicist Charles McDonald says studios and production companies have been moving away from international film festival interviews and junkets for some time now, but that the trend is picking up pace. He sees the move as a change in strategy from studios and distributors.
“For certain films, which might not have worldwide distribution in place yet, or not have a marketing plan [the festivals] are being seen more as a place to test the water a little bit here before [studios] actually embark on a marketing strategy, with press interviews, etc.,” says McDonald. “And actors are increasingly less willing to do lots of interviews.”
But McDonald warns the policy risks doing real damage to the film festival ecosystem. “My feeling is, without the media, the festivals don’t really exist,” he says. “When a studio or whoever comes to Venice, to Berlin, to Cannes, the media coverage they get is absolutely necessary and essential to launching their films. And if the journalists can’t get access to those one to two big-name interviewees, their outlets won’t be able to afford to send them anymore.”
Asked about the issue at the opening press conference on Wednesday, the Venice Film Festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera said he wasn’t aware of the problem and promised: “I will look into it.” But Barbera also noted that the festival does not control the marketing decisions made by private companies like the studios.