Sponsored by the French daily, Le Monde and the French political science Institute, Sciences Po Paris, an independent study circle has been set up to reflect upon issues relating to the cinema. This group is called :
L’EXCEPTION, groupe de réflexion sur le cinéma
(Cinema Study Circle)
The objective of this association is to organise deliberation sessions, debates and seminars on all aspects of the cinema. It also requests and publishes research on the cinema industry, its situation and in particular the public policies that affect it.
This initiative was taken in response to an observation, a need and a desire.
The observation: cinema is a key player in the relationship between politics, economics and culture.
The need: we need to revise our vision of the relationship between public action, private intervention and artistic creation. A French model exists, but its foundations date from the end of the 1950s. We are now facing the increasing influence of phenomena such as digital technology, network communications and economic globalisation with the resulting concentration of focus. The role of supranational authorities is escalating and the old modes of public intervention are no longer adapted to the current situation. This means we now need to envisage new approaches to public action, in terms of public bodies (national organisations but also supranational or local/regional ones), in terms of the groups concerned, be they professional groups, university groups or associations and, finally, in terms of the film makers themselves.
The desire: our desire to understand what is happening now can be summarised in a single word : decode. We want to decode what is at work in the stories on film, in the choice of images and their composition as they appear on our screens, but we also want to decode how the institutions involved function, the stance adopted by the different government bodies, the legal and regulatory texts and the proposals from different pressure groups.
The Groupe de réflexion sur le cinéma is led by Jean-Michel Frodon, a journalist and movie critic at Le Monde. He brings together an initial circle of public figures, with the aim of reflecting upon the different aspects of cinema (political, legal, technical economic and aesthetic), and of implementing specific research projects to foster the reflection process. The resulting work and conclusions will then be made available to all those people and organisations concerned by these subjects.
