As a prelude to its sixtieth anniversary, on May 16th the Festival de Cannes organized a moment of reflexion on the changing profile of the audiences of tomorrow. Confronted with multiple digital offerings (Vod, community networks, blogs, vlogs), today’s audience is engaging in new ways with film, bringing significant transformations to the international film market.

Over 300 festival participants from around the world attended this event which featured speakers who are exploring and developing new digital applications and who shared their experience and points of view on digital innovation and its impact on the world cinema market.

Danah Boyd, an ethnographer and social media researcher, used vivid examples to describe how American adolescents are using the internet to socialize and communicate and how remix and other forms of digital innovation are providing teens with the tools to engage and interact with content in new ways. For his part, sociologist Emmanuel Ethis, underlined the convivial nature of the film theatre in a presentation entitled « Cinema, the subtle art of the rendez-vous ». He also indicated that digital technologies render audiences more demanding by providing them with new ways of seeing, interpreting and communicating film experiences.    

Michael Gubbins, editor of Screen International, provided an overview of the digital landscape today and underlined the opportunities and challenges presented by the explosion of on-demand services worldwide. Adrian Sexton from Participant Productions (USA) highlighted the transforming relationship between content and technology and how it is creating new artistic forms as well as new financing, production and distribution business models. 

The Conference also featured a panel discussion moderated by Colin Brown, Editor in Chief at Screen International. Thomas Hoegh (Arts Alliance Media, GB), Neeraj Roy (Hungama Mobile, India), Bernard Collard (XDC International, Belgium) and François Yon (Films Distribution, France) participated in this discussion which shed light and brought contrasting views on the following themes: the deployment of digital networks, the digitization of content as well as new distribution and promotion platforms such as mobile phones. The panellists underlined the essential role that film festivals play in bringing films to market and supporting cinematographic creativity in this rapidly evolving digital landscape.  

The conclusions of this gathering will be presented by Philippe Dana (journalist) to the European Ministers of Culture on Saturday May 26th at a meeting with Viviane Reding, Commissioner responsible for Information Society and Media, on the occasion of the fifth   Europe Day in Cannes. The Ministers will examine and reflect upon the European Union’s motivation to seize the opportunities and face the challenges of the digital revolution. It will be a matter of ensuring an effective use of new distribution platforms and release windows to optimize the creation of European cinematographic works and to promote cultural diversity