It is a thunderbolt in French cinema. A fortnight before the 2020 Cesar ceremony. The direction of the academy of César announced Thursday, February 13 its "collective resignation", on bottom of crisis between denunciation of the opacity of the management of the academy and Polanski controversy.

"To honor those who made cinema in 2019, to regain serenity and make the cinema festival a celebration, the board of directors of the Association for the Promotion of Cinema (Academy of Arts and Technology of Cinema) took the unanimous decision to resign. This collective resignation will allow the complete renewal of the management ", indicates the Academy chaired since 2003 by producer Alain Terzian.

"This collective resignation will make it possible to proceed to the complete renewal of the direction", continues the César press release.

A general assembly will be held after the 45th ceremony scheduled for February 28 and will be an opportunity to elect "a new directorate to thus prepare, under the aegis of the CNC (National Cinema Center), the modifications to the founding statutes of the Association for the Promotion of Cinema, and implement the announced modernization measures ".

This shock announcement comes after a column published Monday evening in Le Monde, where some 400 personalities including Omar Sy, Bertrand Tavernier, Michel Hazanavicius, Jacques Audiard, Céline Sciamma, Marina Foïs or Agnès Jaoui have called for a "thorough reform" of the Academy of Caesar.

Among their main criticisms, "dysfunctions", an "opacity of the accounts" or the statutes which "have not evolved for a very long time" and are still based on "cooptation". They also complain that the members of the Academy of Caesar have "no voice in the chapter, nor in the operations" of the Academy and the structure that governs it, the Association for the Promotion of Cinema (APC) , "nor during the ceremony".

Deep crisis

The crisis is deep in this institution, created in 1975 by the journalist and producer Georges Cravenne and chaired since 2003 by the producer Alain Terzian. The list of members of the Academy, made up of 4,700 film professionals, is confidential. To be part of it, you must have at least two sponsorships and have participated in at least three feature films in five years.

The Academy is itself governed by the CPA, whose members are the professionals having received an Oscar, the former presidents and several personalities, that is to say 47 members.

It is overseen by a board of directors composed of the founding members, former presidents or members of the Association, 21 people in total, including the filmmakers Costa Gavras, Claude Lelouch or Tonie Marshall.

But, regrets the tribune, "the statutes do not allow a new member of the association to be elected by all of the 4,700 members".

The first signs of the crisis appeared in mid-January, at the dinner of the candidates for the César nominations for the best hope. The Society of Film Directors (SRF) was indignant that the Academy refused two godmothers for hopes, the novelist Virginie Despentes and the director Claire Denis. She had denounced "opaque and discriminatory acts unworthy", supported by several directors and actors.

With AFP

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