Journalists Abandon Johnny Depp Junket as Press Access Issue Escalates

A group of international journalists abandoned a press junket for the Johnny Depp film “Modi” at the San Sebastian Film Festival on Tuesday in the latest escalation of a growing row from within the industry over press access to talent.

Variety understands that 12 journalists working for various international publications had been invited to take part in the interviews for the buzzy film, directed by Depp and launching at the Spanish festival. Understandably, Depp was the star attraction and the individual everyone wanted to speak to, but according to Italian freelancer writer Marco Consoli the group was offered a roundtable with the actor, plus his co-stars Riccardo Scamarcio and Antonia Desalt, with an allocation of just 15 minutes for each of two tables of six journalists.

“The pairing of talent has been happening for some years now and makes our job more and more challenging,” says Consoli. “Because most of the time, when you ask a question they start to talk to each other, and it’s very hard to get a proper interview with any of them.”

Despite such concerns, the journalists reluctantly agreed to the pairings. But when the start of the junket then ran late, the publicists reportedly explained that, as there wasn’t enough time, they would be forced to conduct the interviews in one group of 12 reporters for 20 minutes. Consoli asserts that the journalists pushed back, arguing that the only way they’d accept this was if the 20 minutes would be spent solely with Depp.

“When we were told that the only option was less time with the three of them all together, we all decided to abandon the junket, and not talk to Johnny and not report on the film,” he explains. The other journalists involved were Kristina Kudelova, Gill Pringle, Dubravka Lakic, Ali Moosavi, José Paiva Capucho, James Mottram, Elaine Guerini, Yuko Takano, Gabriela Bravo, Andrey Plakhov, and Carlos Helì de Almeida.

The junket situation in San Sebastian comes on the heels of a fallout at the Venice Film Festival, where a number of international journalists signed an open letter decrying to lack of access to major talent, warning that cinema journalism was “at risk of extinction” if studios and publicists continued to shut them out.

The letter argued that the vast majority of journalists attending the festivals were being denied access to big name stars and that the situation — which has been growing across the major film festivals over recent years — was becoming untenable, especially since many reporters were freelance, pay their own way and rely on such interviews.

“We find this shocking and deeply concerning. We ask to change this policy that has long contaminated all the major festivals and to return to offering interview junkets to the press at film festivals,” the letter read, adding that there could soon be hundreds of outlets boycotting films and artists who denied them access to interviews.

“Eventually the protest could involve the festivals themselves, which risks seeing the departure of hundreds of accredited journalists and publications and where the commentary on films and the opinion of their authors will be left to artificial intelligence.”