A handful of stars, including Adam Driver and Jessica Chastain, will still promote films at Venice
Adam Driver, Jessica Chastain, and Mads Mikkelsen will attend the Venice Film Festival under Interim Agreements from SAG-AFTRA
Aux News Jessica Chastain
If you were really bummed about not seeing celebrities waving from Venetian water taxis arriving for the Venice Film Festival this year, well, you’re in luck. As it turns out, a few glamorous stars will be making the trek to Italy after all, despite the SAG-AFTRA strike that largely prevents actors from promoting their work. Previously, it was reported that Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla was granted an interim agreement to send its cast to the festival; now, several other casts have confirmed their attendance.
Per Variety, stars confirmed for the Venice red carpet include Adam Driver (for Michael Mann’s Ferrari), Caleb Landry Jones (for Luc Besson’s Dogman), Mads Mikkelsen (for Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land) and Jessica Chastain (for Michel Franco’s Memory). That’s in addition to Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, and Priscilla Presley for Priscilla.
Interim agreements have been somewhat controversial
Interim agreements have been a somewhat controversial subject surrounding the strike. These agreements have been granted to independent productions (meaning those that fall outside the scope of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which includes the major studios and streamers), allowing those projects to keep filming. The logic goes that any independent production that can fulfill SAG-AFTRA’s proposals punctures the AMPTP’s assertion that it can’t meet those demands. However, some striking members have questioned this strategy given that it undermines the optics of a full work stoppage. Viola Davis, for instance, declined to move forward with one of her projects despite the fact that it was granted an interim agreement.
All that said, SAG-AFTRA leadership encouraged members whose projects were operating under interim agreements to support and promote those projects at the upcoming Venice, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals. In a statement released last week, the guild said “Supporting productions covered by a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement shows strong solidarity with the union” and gave its blessing not only to audition for projects with interim agreements but also to “celebrate and fully promote their projects.”
“The Interim Agreement is a vital part of our strategic approach and was created for several reasons, all of which are aimed at protecting the interests of our members,” SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland explained in the statement. “The Agreement demonstrates to the AMPTP and the struck companies that independent producers at all budget levels are eager, keen, and able to work with our members under these terms.”
Interestingly, Italian news agency ANSA (via Variety) has reported that Kiefer Sutherland will also attend the Venice Film Festival for The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, the last film of director William Friedkin. Unlike the films listed above, Friedkin’s movie isn’t an indie with an Interim Agreement—it’s produced by Showtime and Paramount Global, an AMPTP member. We’ll see later this week if Sutherland does indeed hit the red carpet, and if he has some sort of special dispensation to do so.
16 Comments
“However, some striking members have questioned this strategy given that it undermines the optics of a full work stoppage.”Count me as being in this camp (well, supporting this camp, I’m not a member). Most people don’t know/ won’t care to look up what is and is not an AMPTP production, they’re just gonna see people that are supposedly striking out waving to cameras and plugging projects.
The problem with that is that the union loses the potential leverage of one of the studios breaking with the others. Say Paramount decides, fuck it, we’re losing money hand over fist, we’ll make a deal. So they do, and SAG says, great, our actors can now work on/promote Paramount projects. Suddenly the other majors are like, shit, we’re gonna end up getting screwed if we hold out until last. Having smaller producers be willing to make deals is a smaller form of that leverage; in the long run, those little producers can say to investors, “Look, we’re making money, unlike the big studios,” and investors start directing more money toward them, and if the big studios hold out long enough, eventually they wither while the small producers grow to supplant them.
If SAG’s policy is no interim agreements—as long as any studio is struck, no SAG actors can work anywhere on anything—no studio has a motivation to make a deal. Whether uneducated members of the public are confused by the concept of “we’re striking against individual companies, not against the idea of working” is irrelevant by comparison.
with the way information works these days, i figure anyone with even a passing interest would understand completely, and those without don’t care either way.
Based on the current state of politics, health care, QAnon, and the flat earth movement, I would say that is categorically NOT how information works today.
all due respect to all people but i was talking about non-morons.
Apparently I can’t “star” comments now so I’ll just say “star” here in the grays where no one will see me because I don’t think “pending” works right now either.
“Most people don’t know/ won’t care to look up what is and is not an AMPTP production, they’re just gonna see people that are supposedly striking out waving to cameras and plugging projects.”
Yeah, and I bet NOBODY is going to make a point of talking about the strike during the intror the Q&A following the screening.
These actors, who got a waiver to do this, probably don’t care at all about talking about the strike, right? Huh, genius???
Optics aren’t going to win, money is going to win. If the companies that agree to work under the desired agreements are out there making money, and some workers are being able to earn an income that can keep them on the picket lines longer and meanwhile the big studios which refuse to cave are losing money, that will win the strikes.The optics will only win them sympathy when they lose the strike.
Look, I get what you’re saying but I’m much more with dirtside on this. It’s an essential bargaining chip and it shouldn’t be abandoned just because some idiots won’t understand. And my experience is that bowing to wilfully ignorant morons, whether they be anti-fair wages, anti-vaxx, creationist, flat-earthers, or whatever, is that they don’t change their minds anyway, so why pander to them?
Fair enough. I guess I didn’t understand how effective a bargaining chip it could be
Yeah, this is complex stuff and we can’t ever know for sure what would work better, but this is a long-established strategy for unions in lots of industries so it’s not like SAG-AFTRA and WGA are making it up as they go.
The interim agreement is basically accepting all of SAG-AFTRA’s demands, therefore demonstrating that it’s entirely affordable for studios to do that too. The more movies that get made (and are successful) under those terms, the more ridiculous it looks that AMPTP are refusing to sign up to them.
Its a lot more complicated than ‘some people will be confused and that hurts the cause’
I’m very disappointed in Caleb Landry Jones.
SCAB! SCAB!
Whenever each of these hits streaming, it will do so with an AMPTP member that will benefit from the broken strike without giving in to its demands.