We all agree that the last Québec Cinéma gala, last June, got stuck in its boot laces. One gag after another falling flat drove the nail in the coffin. The poor animator Geneviève Schmidt was not the only architect of the disaster. Scribes had committed these texts without salt, sowing dismayed faces on the floor. A lack of bite, emotion, poetry, thanks in general lackluster, uninspiring presenters. Ouch. The assistance already chipped in the room by the pandemic shrunk to the foyer for the big annual meeting of the seventh national art. Nearly 500,000 spectators, all the same…
Nevertheless! The passion for the cinema should have ignited this ceremony. We wanted the lifting of a wave carrying the stage, the audience to studio 42 of Radio-Canada and the public in slippers, calling for a full reunion with our films. Even those that many people hadn’t seen in these covid times… Hard, it’s true.
It remained to review the formula, to coat it with dreams and madness, with magical and original images launched by our filmmakers for the fantastic ride.
It also remained to remove the delivery of the Iris from its calendar box in June, which has been moving away for five years from the celebrated cinematographic vintage. In this season, audiences are already breathing in the vapors of summer, with films fresher in memory and others far away within sight. The decision to postpone its dates in 2017 to better dissociate itself from the old name Jutra, in the wake of the sex scandal that posthumously splashed the filmmaker ofAll things Consideredwas an easily correctable error.
As for the rest, welcome to imagination and audacity in the ranks of screenwriters, animators and laureates. Hear! Hear! We need everyone’s enlightenment.
But cutting the cord, as Radio-Canada did this week by announcing the withdrawal of the gala from its airwaves, here is brutality and a pure lack of artistic vision. “Radio-Canada abandons Quebec cinema,” headlined Tuesday in a press release the Quebec Association of Media Production. The community screams, moviegoers feel the carpet slipping under their feet after 25 years of celebrations celebrated on its airwaves, from the Jutra prizes to the Iris prizes. Some people greet the news with indifference. The formula had had its day. Hop there, on to the next one!
Not that easy. Already the Crown corporation reserves the minimum portion for Quebec films throughout the year. Its cultural and educational mission slowly and surely takes a nosedive.
TVA announced last June to drop the Artis evening, dedicated to television artists, after 36 years of broadcasting. Interest in this kind of galas is decreasing around the world, it was said in high places. Even the Oscars are struggling, see!
Except that Radio-Canada, unlike TVA, remains a public channel with an educational and cultural mission. The house is duly subsidized to avoid being at the mercy of the ratings, just to offer viewers a quality production. Except that it is constantly elbowing its competitors in the private sector, counting the pipe heads who stuff their shows on the small screen, sacrificing the good or weeds that have not been able to rise. Suddenly, any perspective, at a time when culture is seeking its way to boost new audiences, is erased by cookie-cutter decisions. The broadcaster has responsibilities towards his audience who are losing their bearings and has the means to fulfill them. In addition, the media are shooting the CBC in the foot by brandishing audience figures where they should salute initiatives of finesse and anchoring for the rest of the world. Values and messages are to be changed.
Partly send back to the backyard of a variety show like Good evening ! the task of talking to the cinema once a year instead of the gala is a terrible abdication by Radio-Canada. Cinephilia is not tattooed in the heart of Jean-Philippe Wauthier. The game must be played in a consecrated box, for the love of an art in search of meaning that goes beyond the flashes of stardom, entertainment and humor.
I’ve seen all kinds of Quebec cinema galas over the years. The vulgar and the admirable, the moving and short-legged. But they maintained a link between the artisans of national works and the general public. And who today doesn’t need the inspiration of creators to fly away, to breathe, to dare to see far into a desert of hope? Art is both an oasis and a rider. No, when a bad wind blows, don’t slam the door in its face.