Paris (AFP)

The day after the resignation of the management of the Académie des César after several weeks of crisis, the French cinema community expresses its relief, hoping for more democracy, modernity and diversity in this showcase of the hexagonal 7th Art.

"It was an obsolete mode of operation that gave birth every year to a ceremony that was not the desired showcase of French cinema, so I think it is a very good decision," said Friday on Europe 1 on director Michel Hazanavicius, one of the signatories of a petition launched on Monday by some 400 personalities from the 7th Art, including Omar Sy, Jacques Audiard or Céline Sciamma, to demand a "thorough reform" of the Academy of the Cesars.

Accused of opacity and self-esteem, the management of the Académie des César, chaired since 2003 by producer Alain Terzian, ended up resigning in a block Thursday just two weeks before the most prestigious awards ceremony French cinema, already undermined by the Polanski controversy.

This resignation will allow the renewal of the board of directors, currently composed of 21 people, including the filmmakers Costa Gavras, Claude Lelouch or Tonie Marshall, with less than a third of women and a high average age.

This council oversees the Association for the Promotion of Cinema (APC) and its 47 members (professionals who have received an Oscar, ex-presidents and personalities), which is responsible for governing the Academy of Caesar, made up of 4,700 members.

- "end of a dictatorship" -

The National Cinema Center (CNC) said on Friday that it had already "started working together" to renovate the governance of the Cesars, at the request of the Minister of Culture Franck Riester.

It will continue in the coming weeks, in order to lead to a draft of new statutes, which will be "put to the vote of an extraordinary general assembly held before the end of March", he added.

The Minister of Culture wanted Thursday that the new leadership be "guided by a democratic functioning and the requirements of openness, transparency, parity and diversity".

"For once, I agree with Franck Riester", reacted on Twitter the producer Saïd Ben Saïd ("Elle", "Synonyms"), who had been very virulent in recent days, saying that "the system of Caesar governance "appeared" like a frightful scandal ".

"It's the end of a dictatorship," said Pascal Rogard, director general of the SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers), who did not hesitate to castigate the "Paraguayan regime". "of Alain Terzian, the president of the Academy very criticized by the 7th Art.

For the leader of the SACD, "this steering committee was completely disconnected from today's cinema". "We must put things right" and "put new blood" so that everyone can "feel usefully represented", he added, estimating that this could be done "by the summer".

- Awareness -

"Like the more than 500 signatories of the petition, we are delighted with this announcement", reacted for his part the producer Patrick Sobelman ("The Aquatic Effect"), hoping that the "governance of the governance of Association towards more transparency and democracy ".

For the director of photography Caroline Champetier, member of the board of directors, resigning was also "the least of the things we can do to become aware of what is happening and of a new wind which must blow on the cinema".

"The feeling that I had was that the people who sat on it were not representative of the cinema that was being made," said the one who had forcefully asked for more young people in this body.

But for her, beyond the Caesars, this crisis also symbolizes "the end of the marriage between cinema and television", by "asking the question of the financing of cinema for 30 years by television channels".

"Mr. Terzian was the emblem of that", through his close links with Canal +, producer and broadcaster of the ceremony and great financier of French cinema, she believes. "We have come to the end".

© 2020 AFP