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César 2020, political edition – Le Courrier

What’s going on at the Cesars? At the end of January, the announcement of the twelve nominations for I accuse – front favorite Wretched and Portrait of the girl on fire (eleven and ten nominations) – relaunched the Polanski controversy. No “moral positions” at the César, replied Alain Terzian, president of the Academy, who also promised to establish parity in its ranks (35% women today). A few days later, 400 of its members (including the comedian Omar Sy and the filmmaker Céline Sciamma) denounced in The world the “elitist and closed” functioning of the Academy. This tribune led to the surprise resignation of its board of directors on February 13, fifteen days before the ceremony to be held on Friday.

If it has often served as a sounding board for various controversies, the traditional award ceremony this year takes on new challenges. It crystallizes very current social and political questions, which among others stir the small world of cinema, in France as elsewhere. The twelve nominations for I accuse, the result of the vote of some 4,700 members of the Academy, testify to the support still enjoyed by its director, in an environment that awaited the revelations of the actress Adèle Haenel to finally take stock of the MeToo movement. The tribune of World further points to the lack of parity and diversity within the Academy – as in Cannes (pinned for its competition where female directors are rare) or in Hollywood (with the sling Oscar So White). Clearly, critics are multiplying against a French cinema that is too white, masculine and bourgeois, not very representative of society.

The 45th Cesar Ceremony will provide an opportunity for the “big family” of French cinema to wash their dirty clothes in public. Because these questions will certainly weigh on the vote of the Academicians, giving a symbolic dimension to the winners. There will be signs of a healthy awareness or reactionary blindness. In the queen categories for best feature film and best director, will the winners be Polanski and his pro domo advocacy, Sciamma and her feminist manifesto or Ladj Ly and his suburban movie? Adèle Haenel will she be crowned best actress? Will “professionals in the profession” distinguish Thanks to God or The Dazzled, who condemn sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, when they separate the man from the artist when one of theirs is accused? Who will go on stage and to deliver what speeches? Answers in four days…

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