There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to films impacted by the pandemic: a list of titles whose release was postponed or even cancelled, and of productions suspended or delayed. Not even during the two world wars did cinema suffer such a drastic interruption of its activities. The picture is devastating. The global box office fell from last year's record of 42 billion dollars to just over 16 billion this year according to the latest estimates, and in Italy alone the damage to the audiovisual sector reached 100 million euros per month. Moreover, in our country between 300,000 and 380,000 workers in entertainment and culture found themselves without work during the first wave in spring, according to Enpals, the national social security and welfare body for entertainment workers.

In this moment of deep crisis, films have paradoxically become an even more essential point of reference for entertaining the billions of people forced to stay at home. With the closure of cinemas, within just a few months streaming became the main means of watching them. In this way, the pandemic drastically accelerated changes that were already under way, favouring a distribution model that is more accessible and closer to people's needs, but that also risks disadvantaging small and independent players compared with the commercial giants that dominate the market.

Films are now on streaming

Cinemas are an essential industry that represents the best that American talent and creativity have to offer. But now we fear for their future.

These are the words of a letter signed by directors of the calibre of James Cameron, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, alongside the owners of American cinema chains, calling on leaders of the US Congress to save cinemas that might otherwise "not survive the pandemic". It had not been since 1998 that the United States, whose film industry is the largest in the world, had recorded such low box office numbers. The darkest weekend was that of 13–15 March, but the situation is still far from having returned to normal.

The Italian box office also suffered enormous losses: more than 70–75 per cent between January and March 2020 compared with the same period the previous year. Against this backdrop, the leading video on demand (VOD) platforms — streaming services for content on demand — such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ and Disney+, became practically the only sources of cinema, alongside similar but smaller services.

Their growth has gone hand in hand with cinema closures, which in some cases — such as that of Regal Cinemas, the second-largest cinema chain in the US — became permanent. "While we share some sadness and nostalgia about this, I'm sure people felt the same way when automobiles replaced horse-drawn carriages," is the pointed comment of investor and philanthropist Daniel Loeb. A change, then, that is attributed to the logic of "progress" — above all economic progress — the same logic underpinning Disney's decision, as one of the world's leading film players, to reorganise in order to focus increasingly on streaming, riding the wave of Disney+'s success, which reached over 70 million subscribers in its first year, far exceeding the company's targets.

Where to watch new releases

In this scenario, production companies have had to rethink their strategies for releasing new films. Many are waiting for cinemas to reopen rather than releasing titles directly on VOD platforms, pushing back some of the year's most anticipated films. Mulan was due out in March but audiences had to wait until September, and the ninth episode of the Fast and Furious saga, F9, will not reach cinemas until May 2021, more than a year after its original date. The emblematic case is the new James Bond film, No Time to Die, shifted from November this year to April next year.

According to some observers, however, it is inevitable that more and more films will be released directly on streaming, bypassing cinemas altogether. Universal adopted this strategy for the animated film Trolls World Tour, which recorded the biggest digital debut of all time and surpassed the box office takings of the first film in the series, released in 2016. "It was perhaps one of the most significant decisions for the future of movies," writes Wendy Ide in the Guardian.

The elimination of the window during which a film is available exclusively in cinemas before moving to VOD channels does not, however, satisfy cinema owners, given that this period is particularly valuable for box office takings. But times have inevitably changed. Whereas in the US the standard window between a theatrical release and a VOD release is seventy days, Universal and the American Multi-Cinema chain have drawn up an agreement to shorten it to 17.

Many cinemas have also taken matters into their own hands by offering films via streaming. A good example is provided by independent Italian cinemas. In Milan, the Beltrade launched the VOD channel Il Beltrade sul sofà, and the Fondazione Cineteca made its archive available for streaming, with viewing figures growing to as many as two million. So too did venues across the country such as Lab80 in Bergamo, parallelo41 in Naples, the PostModernissimo in Perugia, the Cineteatro Orione in Bologna, Streeen in Turin and the Cineclub internazionale in Reggio Calabria.

I don't think the pandemic will eliminate the act of going to the cinema. But it's possible that watching films that aren't blockbusters in theatres will become something more akin to attending a classical music concert; a luxury experience available at a higher price.

Alyssa Rosenberg, journalist at the Washington Post

Festivals move online too

The pandemic has also swept through film festivals. Many were forced to cancel their 2020 editions, including those in Beijing, Prague, Istanbul and Tribeca. Others, such as the Cannes Film Festival, were postponed, while others still went ahead in scaled-back versions, as happened in Toronto and Venice. This is a trend that works against auteur cinema, for which the festival circuit is an important vehicle for accessing awards and greater visibility.

Other events moved online. The Bfi London film festival (Lff), for example, was held in October in a hybrid edition in which some films screened in cinemas while others were accessible in digital format alongside special content such as director presentations. Digitalisation also gave momentum to a broader conversation about the sustainability of film events. "Festivals bring together people from all over the world, with an enormous negative impact on the environment," Tricia Tuttle, artistic director of the Lff, told the Guardian. "One of the positive things about this moment is that people are thinking about how to develop models that are digital-first, and therefore geographically more accessible."

A new way of making films?

Film productions also carry an enormous social and environmental footprint, and their interruption due to the health emergency could open up possibilities for rethinking them differently in the future. The suspension of sets affected productions of the calibre of the Avatar sequels, Jurassic world: dominion, Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley film and Matrix 4. "Covid-19 has made it riskier to finance films due to higher insurance costs and ensuring staff safety," the World economic forum notes. "It could therefore become harder to find investment for independent production companies, with consequences such as a reduction in the variety of cinematic content."

The first wave of the pandemic shut down many sets around the world, but new strategies are now being found to continue filming while protecting staff safety, such as mass testing, the use of quarantine and the creation of isolation bubbles. For example, production of Mission impossible 7 resumed — Tom Cruise was indeed in Rome on 29 November for filming — thanks in part to ad hoc measures such as an exemption from the quarantine period for staff when the set moved to the United Kingdom. In France too, the largest film producer in Europe, cameras have started rolling again. The former Culture Minister Franck Riester declared in June that "no, the kiss has not been eliminated": love scenes can take place, but only between actors who have been tested for coronavirus.

A new cinema

At its moment of greatest crisis, cinema has reaffirmed itself as one of the principal vehicles of connection between people and art and culture, as well as an extremely important tool for bringing people together — not necessarily in a physical sense — during a period of adversity such as this. To continue fulfilling this role, the entire industry is reinventing itself because "the crisis has brought to light problems that already existed, problems that need to be addressed if we want to survive," Monica Naldi of Cinema Beltrade told the Hollywood Reporter.

We are suffering enormously. But we have the opportunity to experiment and to reach a much wider audience.

Philip Knatchbull, chief executive of the VOD platform Curzon home cinema

If the digitalisation of film consumption and the need to rethink the way films are made are the main consequences of the pandemic, many parts of the supply chain are in parallel working together to overcome the difficulties. For the first time in Italy, the entire world of cinema has united under the umbrella of Movie-ment: associations, distributors, producers, exhibitors and institutions together to "relaunch cinema as a form of entertainment — cultural and social — active throughout the year … guaranteeing an offering of great cinema."

Italian arthouse film distributors together with around 150 independent cinemas have signed an open letter in support of independent Italian cinema exhibition, which, as elsewhere in the world, risks being disadvantaged relative to the major players. "We want to use this suspension to … design together a plural, sustainable and equitable future for cinema." And if "cinema is often the sole cultural outpost of a community and the most easily accessible, cutting across all ages and social groups, a place where emotions are amplified by shared viewing," the many exhibitors and workers who have backed the appeal reject the possibility that streaming platforms rather than cinemas should become the primary home of films. "No other place, real or virtual