Most streaming platforms predators, don't care about cinema: Oliver Laxe

Spanish film director Oliver Laxe isn't too pleased with the penetration of streaming platforms as he believes they are "predators" who care only about consumers and not cinema. Oliver, director of award-winning films like, "You All Are Captain", "Mimosas", said in Europe, only the elderly are going to theatres and the young are binge-watching TV series.

"This is decedent, a huge problem because films are better for spectators. Netflix and all these platforms are not making better films, they all seem the same. They are important platforms, (only) if they respect the times, the chronology of films: festivals, then cinema release and then (online) platforms," Oliver told PTI. "This is more healthy. Most of these platforms are predators. They don't care about cinema. They just want consumers. It doesn't mean in future I won't work with some platform. I will do with some logical things," he added.

The filmmaker was speaking on the sidelines of JIO MAMI Mumbai 21st Mumbai Film Festival with Star, where his film "Fire Will Come" screened. The movie chronicles the story of an arsonist who gets out of prison and returns to his hometown, a small village hidden in the mountains of rural Spain.

Oliver said he does not consider himself as the filmmaker of ideas but of "intentions" and his recent was born out of a desire to make a nomad story and present the values of his ancestors. "I wanted to make a film about them. My intention was to make the audience connect with animals, the trees, the place. I wanted to shoot the soul of the place."

"Fire Will Come" has been shot in Galicia, a village in North West of Spain where his mother was born. "I love that place. When a filmmaker makes a film, he has to connect with his essence, connect with himself. Filmmaking is to imagine a world where you want to live. I liked this world, of an old woman, his son and three cows," the 37-year-old filmmaker said.

The director said as someone who likes to stay connected to his roots, he will never make a film on a city. "It'll not connect with me. I'm not from the city and I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in the decadence of modernity."

All three of his films have several top honours. "Fire Will Come" bagged the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Oliver said awards empower him to make the cinema he believes in. "Awards give you more power and freedom. You've to use that to be freer and do what you really need to do. In Spain, it isn't easy to make the films I do. Thanks to these awards, I can make the films that I want to.

"The funding is difficult because I don't work with popular actors. But there are no excuses, you can make films the way you want, small, big, with professional actors, without or even with cows," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)