The 79th annual Venice Film Festival has gotten itself embroiled in controversy due to heavily restricting the footage international broadcasters are allowed to use from the event.
This is the first time in history that something like this has taken place, shocking many major media companies like AP, Reuters, and Getty, who journalistic resources rely on for footage and image content as a source of business.
Italian national broadcasting company RAI TV is the only international news source allowed free range over the event’s press coverage. The three media corporations stated earlier have signed a joint letter to try and protest the decision.
“The first we heard of this was on Wednesday when, before we could pick up our accreditation, we had to sign a release, in Italian, binding us to these new rules,” said an anonymous editor.
The restrictions apparently cite “Italian Law” and bar international press from getting over 90 seconds of total film from each red carpet event, which is a major problem for international broadcasters, namely entertainment pages. What’s even worse for broadcasters is that companies like AP and Getty are completely barred from press conference events, and can only use 90 seconds of footage that RAI TV chooses to supply to them.
“It essentially prevents us from reporting on the festival, from doing the job we came here to do,” said another reporter from a major news service. “You can’t tell the story of a complicated film in 90 seconds, with a couple of soundbites.”
RAI is the event’s official broadcasting company. They’ve had to pay heavily to earn the power that they do have. However, they plan on committing to filming every single event and press conference, in exchange for having exclusivity. This policy is nothing new on its own, as every event has exclusive elements when it comes to news broadcasting.
However what is new is the limit placed on how much footage can be used from the official broadcaster, which has never been an issue in the past.
“The idea that we can’t use the material that we shot ourselves, for which we have the copyright, is absurd,” said another anonymous editor.
“The red carpet is one thing, but not letting us into the press conferences means our reporters can’t do their jobs,” another one told press. “Often the press conference is the only opportunity we have to ask questions of the director or stars of a film.”
This policy severely affects the studios at the event such as Netflix, which has four individual films in competition this year. Even though Netflix has made an exclusivity deal with Getty to film their events at the festival, they will only be able to use a minute and a half of footage from each event now.
The policies are cited in European media access legislation, which requires networks with exclusive filming contracts to provide portions of their footage to other international broadcasters. This specific law states that there needs to be a minimum of 90 seconds of footage provided.
Editors who met with the festival’s directors on Friday stated that “this is something we have to accept, unfortunately, but if these rules stay in place, we will have to reassess whether we want to come back to the Venice Film Festival next year.”
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