1/2021 Coming To A Screen Near You: The Future of Cinema Media Development is published quarterly by the World Association for Christian Communication 308 Main Street Toronto, Ontario M4C 4X7, Canada. Tel: 416-691-1999 Join the World 16 Tavistock Crescent Association for Christian London W11 1AP, United Kingdom. Communication! www.waccglobal.org WACC is an international organization that pro- motes communication as a basic human right, Editor: Philip Lee essential to people’s dignity and community. Root- ed in Christian faith, WACC works with all those Editorial Consultants denied the right to communicate because of status, Embert Charles (Chairperson of the Msgr. Patrick An- identity, or gender. It advocates full access to infor- thony Folk Research Centre (FRC) of Saint Lucia) mation and communication, and promotes open Clifford G. Christians (University of Illinois, and diverse media. 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Institutional $ 120 USD Student Rate $ 20 USD Cover artwork: Brad Collicott Published in Canada ISSN 0143-5558 2 Media Development 1/2021 a Vol. LXVII 1/2021 4 Editorial 36 Richard Attenborough’s Oh! What a Lovely War 5 Streaming stress; pandemic Philip Lee panic Heidi Ippolito 40 On the screen 9 What’s to come in faith and film John P. Ferré 13 The future of cinema is the future of us all Gabriella Lettini N THE NEXT ISSUE 16 Erase una vez el cine I Carlos A. Valle The 2/2021 issue of Media 20 New trends watching films in Development will focus on the legacy Australia of the 1980 MacBride Commission David Griffiths for the Study of Communication 23 Ten significant themes in cinema Problems and what it might development in the 2010s have had to say about the digital Peter Malone transformation of society. The issue will include reflections by 29 Why film festivals can (not) Juan Somavia, one of the original inherit cinema culture MacBride Commissioners. Lars Henrik Gass 33 The end of cinema at the edges of social life S. Brent Plate 3 Media Development 1/2021 EDITORIAL surprises us and registers with us as funny or accurate or maybe amazing, maybe even amazingly beautiful… A good movie can take It’s a difficult question. Why do people need you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness cinema? Is it merely to take us out of ourselves, that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; to relieve ourselves temporarily of the burdens a good movie can make you feel alive again, of life? Is it simply a form of escapism from the in contact, not just lost in another city. Good day-to-day problems that beset us – personal, movies make you care, make you believe in familial, financial, moral, spiritual? possibilities again.” In The Cat’s Table (2011), Michael Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Ondaatje tells of a 16th century Dutch tapestry which intermittently closed cinemas, the way hanging in an Italian villa and depicting a audiences viewed and perceived films was garden scene. “These were tapestries that had changing. Film streaming platforms together been woven in cold attics in some northern with technological advances were giving country – places that may never have seen a audiences the option of where and when to wild boar or a dove or the lush greenery that watch. No longer was sitting in a crowd in was found in them.” A window onto a different relative silence and darkness the accepted way world. Is that what cinema offers? of viewing a film. No longer was it necessary When the Lumière Brothers first screened to pay the cost of several tickets: a single films in late 19th century Paris, ordinary people low payment could suffice for several people saw themselves for the first time. Workers to watch together. And they could choose coming out of a factory, the arrival of a train at from a broad menu of old to recent films that a station, politicians getting off a boat. Glimpses algorithms suggested might be to their liking. of the lives of others. Photography and moving The way films are made changed in the images immediately fascinated people who same way that they had changed when film previously only had scant recognition of their moved from the cinema to television. “This film existence. In the UK, the earliest known home has been modified from the original version. It movies were made by Alfred Passmore in 1902, has been formatted to fit your screen.” Film showing his family at home in south London production embraced digital technologies, and on holiday on the south coast. which added several layers to the creative Following in the steps of the Lumière imagination. Brothers, Georges Méliès is credited with Today, the film industry is becoming more creating film narration: documentaries, and more IT-intensive and technologically comedies, historical reconstructions, dramas, advanced. For example, key aspects of magic tricks, and féeries (fairy stories).When filmmaking – from video editing, to animation, films began to tell stories, they identified to visual effects (VFX) – are all moving to the and expressed the hopes and fears of those cloud. The cloud helps solve data complexities watching. They focused on archetypes and that face film production, including real- stereotypes symbolic of the realities of the time access to data sets from any global human condition: life, death, love, conflict, location. Major film studios are working with success, failure, temptation, judgement, and the production teams distributed around the coexistence of good and evil. People flocked to world to collaborate on top-secret film projects. see them. With feature film data sets in the cloud, these What was the appeal? In her book Raising postproduction editors are able to access data Kane and Other Essays (1971), American film from anywhere and studios can be confident critic Pauline Kael wrote, “At the movies we that their next blockbuster is protected. want a different kind of truth, something that With the introduction of virtual reality 4 Media Development 1/2021 (VR) and 360º video, major studio players will want to offer moviegoers the ultimate Streaming stress; immersive experience. They are expecting widespread consumer adoption of VR to pandemic panic grow, as well as theatre/cinema adaption Heidi Ippolito to accommodate the new medium. And as VR technology advances and becomes more seamless, it opens up more options for 2020 has been a year of apocalyptic filmmakers to tell stories, making both short revelations in the U.S., uncovering and long form content viable. national failings and imaginative With the rise in quality and affordability alternatives amidst turbulent times. of 4K TV, streaming services, and home theatre An inadequate national response to a systems, more people will likely stay in to watch global pandemic, raging environmental movies. The industry will have to find ways to corner the market with better stories, more disasters, a chaotic presidential election, attention to quality filmmaking (not simply and an ongoing reckoning for racial sticking to a formula), and high production inequity and police violence. standards. Viewers are no longer ignorant of cinematic techniques and they recognise ost of these narratives are intertwined, innovation and imagination. further complicating microcosmic chan- On the distribution side, the big studios Mges to corporate industries, public offices, and in- are likely to take over the Netflix model and dividual lives. One major question that has been do it themselves, so customers will subscribe brewing for the past few years was brought to to the Universal or the Paramount channel for boiling point with international lockdowns in exclusive content. This concept has already been response to the widespread Covid-19 pandemic: tried and tested by major symphony orchestras What are we watching? And perhaps