Oscar winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese entreated exhibitors to show independent film — real indies, not ones with an indie “label slapped on,” since that’s the best insurance the industry has going foward. It’s what will beguile and attract new filmmakers to cinemas and “ultimately, one or two might just create the next blockbuster.”
“Getting younger people to enjoy the theatrical experience… on a screen that is bigger and more engaging than films they see home, will make a difference,” the director said after receiving CinemaCon’s first Legend of Cinema Award at a lunch Thursday. It was followed by a wide-ranging Q&A with Leonardo DiCaprio that touched on topics from his youth and early film influences Queens, cinema history and the French and Italian New Wave to Citizen Kane and his latest movie.
“I urge a rethinking. You will be investing in the future of the cinematic experience for the good of all of us,” he said.
His sit-down conversation with Leonardo DiCaprio followed Paramount’s presentation at the exhibition industry’s big annual conference where it showed the first footage of Flowers Of The Killer Moon. The Apple Original film will open exclusively in theaters in partnership with Paramount Pictures October 6. It follows a sinister conspiracy against the Osage Nation in Oklahoma that’s been all but erased in the history books.
It’s Scorsese’s sixth film with DiCaprio.
The lunch was sponsored by Fathom Events. NATO’s which had a string of announcements as the event cinema specialist looks to expand.
Jackie Brenneman. EVP and general counsel of NATO and president of the org’s new nonprofit, the Cinema Foundation, presented the award to Scorsese. She said the Legend of Cinema will now become an annual one and will be named after Scorsese.