US Strikes Impact On Global Production: Whose Stories Are We Telling Anyway?

So there I was thinking that Streamlined could safely take a few months off over the summer – nothing big was likely to happen; instead of which Hollywood has gone on strike, the world is on fire (not in a good way), and a brilliant marketing gimmick has convinced everyone to visit the cinema twice in one weekend. In many countries, at least in Hong Kong where I am right now, the thought of spending a combined five hours in an air-conditioned space where you don’t have to pay the electricity bill would be attractive even if they were showing re-runs of every film in the Transformers franchise. Movie marketers take note – climate change could be your best friend.

But while the blanket coverage of ‘Barbenheimer’ and the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes would have us believe otherwise, life is continuing much as normal in most of the world’s entertainment industries. Here in Asia, there will be limited disruption to the autumn film festival circuit and production schedules. Very few Asian festiv…