Paris (AFP)

The crisis is raging on the Caesars, already weakened by the Polanski controversy: more than 200 personalities denounced the opacity and the lack of democracy within the Academy, of which they called for a profound reform, forcing it to urgently request mediation at the CNC.

In a column published Monday evening, more than 200 personalities of French cinema including Omar Sy, Bertrand Tavernier, Céline Sciamma or Agnès Jaoui called for a "thorough reform" of the Académie des César.

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".

Taking note of these criticisms, the board of directors of the Academy of Caesar, indicated Tuesday that it was going to seize the day the National center of the cinema (CNC) "in order to appoint a mediator in charge of a deep reform of the Academy's statutes and governance ".

He also called for "appeasement", while the Caesars are also shaken this year by the controversy over Roman Polanski, targeted by rape charges and topped the nominations for the ceremony of February 28 with "J'accuse" , arousing the indignation of a part of public opinion and of feminists.

- "serious problem" -

But 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 cinema 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.

The first signs of the crisis appeared in mid-January, at the dinner of the candidates for the nominations for the César of the best hope.

The Society of Film Directors (SRF) was indignant that the Académie des César had refused the novelist Virginie Despentes as godmother of actor Jean-Christophe Folly ("L'Angle mort") and the director Claire Denis for Amadou Mbow ("Atlantic"). She had denounced "unworthy opaque and discriminatory acts".

Several directors and actors had relayed these protests during the evening.

- "Insufficient" promises -

The Academy of Caesar had then apologized and, in the face of persistent discontent, promised reform. On the occasion of the announcement of the appointments at the end of January, its president Alain Terzian had said he wanted to initiate an "essential modernization", through the establishment of parity.

He had specified these promises in the Sunday Journal, announcing measures to establish parity within the college of voters (35% women), on the board of directors (28.5% women) and of the APC (17% women). Measures that the Academy has confirmed wanting to take, in a statement released Monday.

However, the petitioners considered the promised changes to be "insufficient". They considered that "it would again be a system of cooptation, a vestige of an era that we would like to be over, that of an elitist and closed system".

"Why can't the 4,700 members of the Academy vote to elect their representatives as is the case at the Oscars, at the Baftas"?, They ask themselves.

Discontent also relayed by several cinema professionals on social networks. "A handful of men pose a problem in French cinema by co-opting each other for 30 years at the head of all commissions, all organizations," said producer Vincent Maraval on Twitter. "Besides being illegitimate, they prevent renewal."

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