The director of Sirat criticizes commercial cinema. But meanwhile, four out of ten directors film once a decade
Oliver Laxe’s statements comparing commercial cinema to “bimbo bread”, especially pointing out the contradiction of making films for Netflix. have generated an unexpected controversy in the Spanish audiovisual sector, relativizing the extraordinary career of ‘Sirat’. The film not only got five statuettes at the European Film Awardsbut it has also received eleven Goya nominations and two Oscar nominations. The debate arises at a significant moment: a study by the European Audiovisual Observatory reveals that four out of every ten European directors and screenwriters who released a feature film in 2015 did not sign another one during the following ten years. A complicated metaphor. Oliver Laxe conceded an interview with The World in which offered his diagnosis on the crisis of youth attendance at the theaters: “It is our fault and our responsibility that young people do not go to the cinemas. They have been given fodder, bimbo bread and their palates are accustomed to sugar and processed foods.” The food metaphor did not stop there. Laxe went on to argue that when these viewers are offered “a rye bread or a pure cereal,” the palate is not prepared, although he insisted that “the sensitivity is there.” The filmmaker, whose film has exceeded three million euros at the Spanish box office and has attracted precisely a young audience, closed his reasoning with a resounding statement: “Having very political proclamations, but then making a movie with Netflix seems like a pure contradiction to me that nullifies your speech.” The accounts don’t work out. The answer did not take long to materialize. Jota Linares, a filmmaker from Cádiz who has often filmed for Netflix, replied in the SER questioning Laxe’s analysis. Linares challenged the simplification of the problem: “I will tell you what allows me to continue maintaining political ideas and express them freely despite having directed series and films for Netflix: my social class.” And he added: “I assure you that, due to my social class, I would be incapable of supporting myself by making only auteur films spaced over time for about two or three years. It doesn’t work out for me, although I see that it does for you.” Finally, he concluded that “you don’t hack the system from within with a six million euro movie with thirty publicists working at your feet. No, dear Oliver. That’s being at the top of the mainstream.” ‘Sirat’s’ money. The contrast between both positions reveals broader tensions in the sector. Laxe speaks from a relatively privileged position, since his film had the financial backing of Movistar Plus+ and is now enjoying an international campaign that has taken him to the Oscars. Linares, for his part, represents a silent majority of filmmakers who fight to get each new opportunity. Precariousness as a backdrop. The debate takes on a more urgent dimension when confronted with the data that published El País based on the study of the European Audiovisual Observatory. The research, which analyzes the careers of 38,762 professionals, covering some 30,000 projects, provides revealing figures: 40% of those who released a feature film in theaters during 2015 did not sign another film again in the entire subsequent decade. At the same time, more than half of the films released each year are debut films. The report’s conclusions leave no room for doubt: there is “an impressive turnover and great precariousness.” Cinema versus television. The document also shows a growing separation between film and television. Only 11% of directors and scriptwriters worked in both formats between 2015 and 2024, dismantling the idea of fluid transfer between screens. On television and platforms, 85% of screenwriters and 91% of directors active in 2015 continued working later, compared to the 60% that disappear from theatrical cinema. “The majority survive poorly. Those who endure have family financial support behind them,” explained director Cristina Andreu in 2021. Little seems to have changed since then. Structural contradiction. Can the industry demand “rye bread”, as Laxe says he does, when the system expels 40% of its creators after a film? Is it fair to hold the public responsible for having a palate “accustomed to processed” in an ecosystem where professional continuity is more the exception than the norm? Laxe himself acknowledges that ‘Sirat’ was considered “a suicide” during the search for financing. If even an ultimately successful project faced that initial diagnosis, what happens to proposals from filmmakers without a safety net? The tension between the discourse of cinematic quality and the precarious reality of European production raises uncomfortable questions about who can afford to cultivate discerning palates. When, furthermore, the system itself does not guarantee anything. In Xataka | Many agree that ‘Stranger Things 5’ lowers the quality of the series. But that doesn’t change Netflix’s ambitious plans.
