CANNES, France — As controversy continued to swirl here over the presence of two Netflix titles that are playing in the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition but won’t appear in any French theaters, the streaming giant finally broke its silence with a message that could be summed up as: The culture is changing and we listen to our 100 million customers.

“We’re living amid a generation that has seen every great movie ever made on a phone, so I think we all have to come to grips with where technology takes us,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a 90-minute interview here Friday with several news media outlets.

Mr. Sarandos said that Netflix had chafed at a French rule requiring a three-year delay between a film’s theatrical release and appearance on a streaming service, part of the country’s complex film-financing system. (Talks in France to reduce that delay broke down this month; France’s new government is expected to tackle the issue.)

The company’s offerings here include “Okja,” Bong Joon-ho’s fantasy film about a genetically modified pig, and when the Netflix credit appeared onscreen Friday at the first media screening, loud boos arose from the audience, followed by some cheers. The divided house captured the moment at Cannes at this year, where Netflix has dominated conversations. (Even more boos broke out when the film’s framing was off for the first few minutes. It was started again from the beginning and the festival issued a statement apologizing for the technical problem.)