Two days before the queen of award ceremonies, otherwise known as the Oscars, on Friday, February 28, the 50th anniversary of the Césars, its French equivalent, will be held at the Olympia theater in Paris under the exceptional authority of Catherine Deneuve. In contrast to the Oscars season, which has been marked by hostile awards campaigns where damning revelations mingled with base tactics, an almost disquieting tranquility is greeting the French film awards. Is it time, in light of the clear and unmistakable break in the historical and moral ties between the United States and Europe, to further cultivate each other’s differences? To march proudly towards the self-dissolution of a spectacle subjected to the mercantile and narcissistic laws of our former ally, under the auspices of competition, promotion and self-celebration?
While we wait for this idea of leaving the empire to gain ground in the profession, we’d like to highlight the remarkable historical continuity of an event that has more or less always functioned, ever since the first Best Film award went to Robert Enrico’s Vieux Fusil (The Old Gun) in 1976 – as the echo chamber of a mainstream auteur cinema, displaying both artistic ambition and an ability to please audiences. As it happens, to the great benefit of the French film industry, this profile has, against the backdrop of crisis, been reconsolidated over the last 15 years or so.
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