25 years ago, La Soirée des Jutra was born to put Quebec cinema in the spotlight. We called “La grande nuit du cinéma” the association which organized this gala. The primary objective as reported by Brian Myles in The duty of March 9, 1999, quoting Roger Frappier, was to “make our cinema better known to the public, to seek out a wider audience so that they come and see our films in theaters”. Which, over the years, whatever we say and whatever we do, has proven true.
I remember very well that following the success of Red violin, by François Girard, during this first evening, the distributor Pierre Latour, of Film Tonic, saw cinema operators come back to him to program the film at the request of spectators who were indignant that a work so unanimously appreciated was not would not have been shown in their cinema. Proof if there was one of the “Jutra effect”, the relevance of which I further underlined in the catalog of 10e birthday party!
The duty of Saturday, printed version (edition of Saturday December 9 and Sunday December 10, 2023), headlined “Le Gala Québec Cinéma, a quarter of a century of crises”, while the website of this daily (consulted on Sunday December 10) wrote “Le Gala Québec Cinema, the eternally unloved”. The body of the text, for its part, remains unchanged, notably this sentence written by its author, Étienne Paré: “In a quarter of a century, the Iris, formerly known as Jutra, will have experienced their share of crises. What’s the point of always trying to save them? » This semantic shift actually modifies the perspective and gives a bad reputation to this gala after having highlighted its state of crisis.
However, if I rely on the first years, when, as general delegate, I took charge of the organization of the events, I cannot ignore, for example, the good humor of the artists and craftsmen who created this event – you in the evening live on television (I see the late Guy Latraverse again with his eye on the stopwatch to check that we do not exceed the allotted time), the festive gatherings following the ceremony (some still remember the parties in the ruelle des Fortifications, at the Intercontinental) and the dinners at the beginning of January which revealed to the media the names of the people who received the Tribute prize.
These moments took place here, not in Toronto, and I don’t feel that it replicated Canadian evenings. The Quebec galas specifically focused on the creativity of local cinema: we only have to look at the list of winners of the Hommage awards.
Viewers were able to appreciate, thanks to this event, the showcase of Quebec cinema, and not the supposed crises or the eternal character of unloved. Contrary to what Odile Tremblay predicted in an article dated March 4, 2000 — “the Jutras risk, during lean years, not having much to offer to their viewers” — the production is is increased, which everyone is happy about.
The relationship between the public and films has certainly evolved, like all those which link a people to its culture. However, creation finds its paths which, even if they “lead nowhere”, like the holzwege (see the text on the origin of Heidegger’s art), are a vital necessity.
So is financing. A recent column signed by dozens of industry people calls for the maintenance of Telefilm Canada’s resources. Known story: in 1999, Agnès Maltais followed “closely the reflections taking place in Ottawa, where the Minister of Heritage, Sheila Copps, is preparing a film policy accompanied by a potential fund of 150 million, in order to allow cinema to find its audience,” we read in The duty.
The more it changes…