Will Strikes Affect This Year’s Film Festivals?
By Movieguide® Contributor
As film festival season begins, many wonder how the WGA and SAG strikes will affect these events.
Amid the ongoing strikes, actors cannot promote their movies or attend premieres. While this might seem like it would kill any appearances at film festivals, interim agreements with movies produced by independent studios allow the glitz and glam to continue.
Rather than be completely void of stars, these festivals will have a smattering of talent depending on the studios behind the movies.
“It’s really been a process of just determining who is coming and under [bad] circumstances,” said Cameron Bailey, a chief executive for the Toronto Film Festival. “But then also, for some of our stakeholders here in Toronto, just assuring them that we’re still going to have that festival excitement, there are still going to be red carpets, that there are still going to be stars in town.”
“It’s an international festival in an international city, and that’s always been a big part of what we do,” he added. “It’s been a process of just figuring out partly the detailed specifics of how we operate under strike conditions, but then also the story we need to tell and how vocally we need to tell it that the festival is on and it’s going to be great.”
The international aspect of the festivals will play a large part this year as many international movies are made by actors who are not a part of SAG, and thus, they can attend the festivals without problems.
At this year’s New York Film Festival, for example, most of the movies are from international productions, with only a quarter of the movies coming from the United States.
As for the projects produced in America, many have exemptions from the actors’ union, allowing those who worked on the movie to run promotions. These exemptions apply to movies created at independent studios that agree to the current stipulations set by the union.
The SAG sees promoting these independent movies as an important step in bargaining with larger studios. They encouraged their members who worked on these projects to support them because it “[strengthens] the union’s bargaining position and demonstrates solidarity.”
In response, actors Adam Driver and Patrick Dempsey walked the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday to promote their movie FERRARI.
“I’m very proud to be here, to be a visual representation of a movie that’s not part of the AMPTP and to promote the SAG leadership directive, which is an effective tactic, which is the interim agreement,” Driver said at a press conference, per Vanity Fair.
“Every time people from SAG go and support a movie that has met the terms of the interim agreement, it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people that they collaborate with, and the others are not,” he added.
However, some actors worry about the public perception of attending these events while the strikes continue.
“I’ve been in conversation with SAG from the beginning and they were very helpful in outlining what is and isn’t OK,” said Telluride festival director Julie Huntsinger about actors promoting their movies. “They’ve been super clear, when there are actors who are concerned about optics when they are with a film that either has an interim agreement or is made for a non-struck entity, they have every ability and they should be here, be proud of what they’ve done, the work they’ve done.”
Yet, even with the union’s blessing, some actors choose to forgo the events rather than face public backlash from both fans and fellow SAG members.
“There’s a big difference between the court of public opinion and what you are or are not allowed to do by the guilds,” explained a publicist working on movies at the Venice, Telluride and Toronto festivals.
Movieguide® previously reported:
As the SAG-AFTRA strike continues, the inability to promote movies through actors’ social media or press tours has already cost studios tens of millions of dollars.
“Not having stars to do publicity for your movies is a huge detriment to the overall campaign,” a top studio executive told The Hollywood Reporter. “You lose the cultural impact of having talent talk about the film. Some movies wouldn’t have worked anyway, but they have more of a shot.”
The new Ninja Turtles movie, for example, had nearly a dozen big-name actors, including Seth Rogan, Jackie Chan, Maya Rudolph and Post Malone, who would have drummed up significant interest in the movie before it was released. Instead, director Jeff Rowe had to bear the burden, resulting in a “green carpet” opening with little coverage.
“It was bizarre,” said a source. “Can you imagine what the group photo [of stars] would have been like on the carpet?”
