Okja Gets a Four-Minute Ovation at Cannes

Bong Joon Ho's Okja had its world premiere on the evening of May 19, 2017, at the Grand Théâtre Lumière during the Cannes Film Festival, the first Netflix film ever placed in the festival's main competition. That morning's press screening had been marred by a technical glitch that scrambled the aspect ratio, drawing boos mixed with applause, but the gala screening ran clean. The film follows a girl named Mija trying to save her genetically engineered 'super pig' from the meat corporation that bred her, and it closed to four minutes of standing ovation. Weeks later, on June 28, 2017, Netflix put the film in front of a far bigger audience than any Cannes crowd, carrying its case against industrial meat straight into people's living rooms.