"Amélie" is by no means a small film, just take a look at Jean-Pierre Jeunet's other films' budget to get a sense of it. By small films I mean for example :
- Sayônara by Kôji Fukada
- Un avant-poste du progrès by Hugo Vieira da Silva
- Psiconautas by Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vázquez
Those are just 3 titles coming up from Allocine that launched this week in theaters. None of them will be on Netflix.
Regarding the ticket price, it's indeed around 11-13 in big circuits, but around 7 in small independant theaters, so that's a reason more to encourage them.
>I foresee a major festival/competition for Streaming only media attended by A-list celebrities in the future.
Sounds awful, why would you restrain a festival to only one method of distribution? Cannes is certainly overrated but they focus on authors first and foremost, and that's what led them to their current position.
Yes it's also a giant vs small cinemas fight: some cinemas in France have 2 or 3 screens and give access to a very wide selection of films in very isolated parts of France. Netflix's catalog is a pack of shit filled with low-tier comedies from the US, and barely any really independant foreign films. As a platform, they have no point of view on the value of films and no editorial ambitions.
French cinema's current position in the world is mainly due to these kinds of stricts regulations, that allow small films to compete with big budget movies for the viewers' attention, and small theaters with big networks. Netflix, iTunes etc. are not just "normal" players in the film production business, they are also marketplaces fighting for distribution exclusivity, and they need to be regulated as such.