Therefore, Radio-Canada will no longer broadcast the Gala Québec Cinéma. When the public broadcaster relegated the Quebec cinema awards ceremony to a Sunday in June, five years ago, it was to ensure certain death in the more or less short term. The elevator to the scaffold, in short.
Posted at 7:15 a.m.
This year’s gala, which failed, still managed to attract 488,000 viewers, that is to say the equivalent of the premiere of Stéphan Bureau’s new talk show on TVA. The formula badly needed to be dusted off, moreover, like all the televised galas, which are no longer popular, in Quebec as elsewhere.
Rather than pass the feather duster, Radio-Canada has decided to wipe the slate clean. In 2023, the public broadcaster will offer, instead of the Gala Québec Cinéma, “a special variety and interview program broadcast at the most opportune time to contribute to the influence of local cinema”.
Nothing less than a breath of fresh air. It was missing, variety shows and interviews on Radio-Canada. As a bonus, announced the public broadcaster late Monday afternoon, “we will also celebrate the cinema as part of the popular show Good evening ! led by Jean-Philippe Wauthier according to a concept that will be specified in the spring”.
We didn’t ask for so much, especially from a great cinephile like Jean-Philippe! The formula, tried in 2020 due to the pandemic, had been so conclusive… A quiz with that?
Pull without more ceremony the plogue of a televised gala which was about to celebrate its 25e birthday is a bit cheap from any broadcaster. However, Radio-Canada is not just any broadcaster. It is a public broadcaster, which not only has responsibilities, but also a mandate which provides, in full, that it must “contribute to the development of talent and culture in Canada”. Promoting Quebec cinema is part of this mandate.
“After careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that other strategies can allow us to more effectively increase the visibility of local films and cinema artists,” said Radio-Canada in a press release. It shouldn’t be too complicated.
Over the next week, the public broadcaster has not scheduled any Quebec films on its air. Not a single short film. Its cultural channel, ARTV, must present two films from here: Origami by Patrick Demers, Saturday at 1:30 p.m. – a time slot popular with moviegoers –, and To live here by Bernard Émond, Sunday at 9 p.m. Night owls who are not ARTV subscribers will be able to see the same film on Radio-Canada on November 4 at 11:07 p.m.
The only other Quebec film scheduled to air on Radio-Canada in the next two weeks is ink and blood by Alexis Fortier Gauthier, Sunday, November 6 at 2:07 a.m. You read that right. Not at 2:07 p.m. At 2:07 a.m. Then tell me, without laughing, that Radio-Canada has strategies to “increase the visibility of local films and artists more effectively”. I hope so !
Radio-Canada has an entire channel devoted to culture, ARTV, where you can see, this Tuesday, four hours of episodes of Beautiful stories from the pays d’en haut (1956-1970), three hours of Me and the other (1966-1971), one hour of The little homeland (1974-1976), two hours of Grumpyseven hours of foreign series and not the slightest minute of a film, from here or elsewhere.
The only “strategy” developed by Radio-Canada is that of having more or less abandoned Quebec cinema, which does not attract enough viewers to its liking. This is the reason why the public broadcaster has relegated the seventh art to time slots that are not profitable enough for so-called original programs to be broadcast there, at night, in the summer or during the holidays. And that he put an end to the broadcast of the Gala Québec Cinéma (and not to the galas which celebrate television, music and humor).
The consequences of this strategy are already being felt, particularly with regard to the financing of our cinema and to cinephilia, which is hardly renewed. And that’s not to mention the fate reserved by the public broadcaster for documentary cinema.
Radio-Canada, I repeat, has a mandate to respect. I am quite willing to replace an unpopular gala that celebrates the excellence of Quebec cinema with a more convivial and attractive format. But not by vague promises of integrating content into talk shows or variety shows. It’s the equivalent of trying to hide vegetables in a recipe for a kid who doesn’t like broccoli. It rarely works.
I have another idea: rather than a boring gala, Radio-Canada should broadcast, at prime time, the best Quebec films of the year, which would finally be entitled to the famous visibility that the public broadcaster is dangling communicated. Our cinema deserves better that we let it die slowly.