The refusal by Radio-Canada to renew the Gala Québec Cinéma on its airwaves, on the basis of declining ratings, made many people jump and mobilized the living forces of the Québec cinematographic community. Normal. This televised event for 24 years aims to open, at prime time, a window on local cinema and its artisans. Closing it sends the wrong signal. You still have to know how to decode it.
Because the current storm is part of a much broader context than what a broadcaster’s renunciation of its commitment to the industry here suggests. It also highlights the poverty of the means undertaken in Quebec to train spectators in the cinema and open their horizons to the various cultures, which the films mirror. The Quebecer, but also all the others.
Until quite recently in Quebec, we had practically ceased to produce films for children and ceded to Disney and Pixar this land where young spectators shape their tastes and habits.
Our governments have dispensed with a structuring and long-lasting policy to broaden the horizons of young spectators in terms of cinema and left the majors Americans to penetrate this market by the strength of the American economy and its star system.
Finally, while we prided ourselves (often rightly) on training filmmakers, creators and technicians well, we neglected to inspire and stimulate the first public for which their future works would be intended.
In its current form, the Gala Québec Cinéma is no longer so much the reflection of healthy cinema as of a misunderstanding, which is reflected even in its production, often decried for its mediocrity. Modeled on the almost centenary formula of the Oscars (whose first gala took place on May 16, 1929) then delivered chopped menu on a linear television channel disused by young people, it responds by the means of the past to a challenge that has moved in digital infinity. Very clever who will be able to tell us what a meager proportion of its viewers was not born when the first gala took place on March 7, 1999.
The Ministry of Culture and Communications maintains that education is not within its mandate. That of Education does not recognize cinema as an art worthy of inclusion in the school curriculum. We should therefore not be surprised by this erosion, including the probable cancellation of the Gala Québec Cinéma (and its possible replacement by a talk show someone softly stamped with the “mandate” seal) is only a symptom.
The fundamental question, so well highlighted by the news, is the following: when will we have a real policy, concerted with the community, structuring and sustainable, for the training of young spectators and the distribution of our films?
Let’s stop looking at the finger. It’s the moon that you have to aim for.