Hollywood faces big 'crisis', director sounds alarm

Kleber Mendonça Filho, a Brazilian director, is sounding the alarm over the rise of streaming services in US movie culture.

“We’re going through a crisis in terms of going to the cinema, but I think with streaming culture and also with the pandemic, the rules were changed,” he says at the Marrakech Film Festival.

He continues, “It’d always been very clear that to see a film, you would see it in the cinema (…). Well, this is not so clear anymore.”

“I think this is taking many people away from the cinema-going experience,” he notes.

The filmmaker adds, “The industry, particularly in Hollywood, really has to draw a line if they want to keep filmgoing alive.”

The line Kleber refers to is his advice that Hollywood should "only release films on streaming after three or four months.”

The filmmaker also points to his latest movie, The Secret Agent, adding, “Now that ‘The Secret Agent’ is in cinemas in Brazil, we made it crystal clear that this film will be in cinemas only for months, and then only later it will be streaming at some point."

"If you send that message, if you make it clear, people will come, and this is what’s happening in Brazil now," he concludes.