This year’s Venice Film Festival is the most star-studded in recent memory. The list of celebrities who have hit the Lido red carpet—Brad Pitt and George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Jenna Ortega, Daniel Craig, Joachim Phoenix, and Lady Gaga—is staggering.
But international film journalists attending this year's festival are complaining about being shut out of the celebrity party, with studios and PR people blocking stars from giving press interviews. Few of the top VIPs at Venice this year are giving interviews to the international press or taking part in “junkets” where a film's cast does sit-down interviews with journalists from international broadcasters. Pitt, Jolie, Clooney, Phoenix and many others will only do the official festival press conference and nothing else. Tim Burton and the cast of Beetle Juice Beetle Juice walked the red carpet in Venice for the world premiere of the Warner Bros. film on Wednesday, but the press conference at the studio was held in London on Thursday.
For international film journalists, most of whom are freelance writers, the “no-interview policy” (journalists can only shout questions at stars on the red carpet in the hope of getting a quick interview) means no exclusive interviews to sell to their regional newspapers, online magazines, or TV and radio shows.
“It's a disaster,” says Marco Consoli, a freelance film journalist from Italy. “We live off these interviews with the big names. It pays us to come here and cover the smaller, independent films.”
Consoli, along with a group of more than 50 international film festival journalists, published an open letter on Thursday protesting the “no-interview policy.” The letter was posted on the Facebook group International Film Festival Journalists, whose more than 700 members include film press officers and festival programmers.
“The Venice Film Festival has just begun and we already know that many films world-premiered at the festival this year will not be giving interviews to the press. Zero, zilch, nada,” the letter reads. “This decision, influenced by the studios and supported by many press officers, jeopardizes an entire category of journalists, especially freelancers, who with their passionate and tireless work often contribute to the success of films, give voice and prestige to directors and actors and help spark the debate on projects aiming for the Oscars, Golden Globes and other prestigious awards.”
Veteran film publicist Charles McDonald says studios and production companies have been moving away from interviews and junkets at international film festivals for a while now, but the trend is catching on. He sees the move as a shift in strategy by studios and distributors.
“For some films, which may not yet have a worldwide distribution or marketing plan [the festivals] they are seen more as a place to test the waters a bit before [studios] they actually embark on a marketing strategy, with press interviews, etc.,” McDonald says. “And actors are less and less willing to do a lot of interviews.”
But McDonald warns that the policy risks seriously damaging the film festival ecosystem. “My feeling is that without the media, festivals don’t really exist,” he says. “When a studio or whoever comes to Venice, Berlin, Cannes, the press coverage they get is absolutely necessary and essential to launching their films. And if journalists can’t get access to those one or two big names that they interview, their media outlets won’t be able to afford to send them.”
Asked about the issue at Wednesday’s opening press conference, Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera said he was unaware of the problem and promised, “I’ll look into it.” But Barbera also noted that the festival does not control marketing decisions made by private companies like studios.