Workshop : Diversity issues for the european players in the classic film industry

On Wednesday October 13, 2021, the first workshop organized by the MIFC, together with Relais Culture Europe, took place. The program included presentations and dialogues between different actors in the field of heritage cinema around the theme of diversity, moderated by Vincent Soccodato, in charge of support for European trans-sectoral activities at Relais Culture Europe, and Marion Thevenot, in charge of the French cinema pole for the French Institute. 

To begin, the two moderators each presented the programs set up by their respective organizations in order to integrate a better diversity in the audiovisual field. 

Vincent Soccodato opened this discussion by presenting the "alternative" project on the social issues of museum practices. This project targets young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who have dropped out of school or live far from cultural venues, and its objective is to open a space for young people so that they can appropriate objects from certain museums while proposing alternative content and pathway. In particular, he mentioned the operation "Louvre pas trop" which allowed several young people to reinterpret different works of the Louvre museum. 

Marion Thevenot, for her part, recalled the primary goal of the French Institute, namely to spread French culture throughout the world. The institute has also made diversity an essential objective for a long time, and gave as an example what it does every year, around the international day of women's rights. On this occasion and during a whole week, the institute puts forward a whole program around women and woman issues as it was the case this year with the series Culottées drawn from the comic strip of Pénélope Bagieu. 

The French Institute also works in collaboration with the journalist Veronique Le Bris on the European Film Factory program. Thus, heritage films, selected by a mixed jury, are made available to young people between the ages of 11 and 18, with the aim of raising their awareness of diversity issues. The films are always accompanied by an educational file, as in the case of Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot, where gender stereotypes were discussed and how to better understand them. The institute also hopes to open this initiative to graduate students in the near future in order to sensitize an even wider audience.

After this rich presentation, the discussion opened to the people present at the workshop. 

The Moroccan producer Izza Génini opened the discussion by asking Marion Thevenot about the way the Institute selects films to be shown around the world. The latter then told her that the Institute acquires the non-commercial rights to about a hundred French works per year (short and feature films, documentaries, animation...) with the common characteristic of being mostly French works (from the point of view of their production) in order to broadcast them free of charge throughout the world. The films selected do not speak exclusively of French culture, giving the example of the recent The Last Hillbilly by Thomas Jenkoe and Diane Sara Bouzgarrou, the French Institute tends to show the plurality and diversity of French cinema. 

It was then the turn of a teacher from INA Sup to take the floor and explain how the school tries to deal with diversity and parity issues. To reinforce this principle, the school has even signed the 50/50 charter demonstrating its commitment to these issues. Issues that concern teachers and students alike, as evidenced by the growing number of research papers on gender issues. At the other end of the room, a student from L'Ina Sup also explained that, in the interest of diversity and equal opportunity, the school has set up an "alpha class" whose aim is to offer training leading to qualifications for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Afterwards, a lawyer who represented SRF for a long time, reminded the audience that the world of filmmaking has long been reserved for men. He wondered about the current percentage of women in the directing department of a school like the Fémis to see if this vision of "directing as a man's job" was about to change. Although she did not have the exact figures in mind, Marion Thevenot explained that the number of women in these courses was constantly increasing, as an encouraging sign for a more diversified future. 

The discussion then turned to the Lumière Festival itself and its market, the MIFC, represented here by Anaïs Desrieux. She pointed out that diversity and gender issues have been at the heart of these two events for many years now, notably through the retrospectives devoted to certain filmmakers, sometimes sidelined by the history of cinema, such as Ida Lupino but also this year, the director of the Japanese Golden Age, Kinuyo Tanaka. 

From the diversity of the participants' profiles, it emerged from this first workshop that diversity issues concern all strata and fields of the film world. These questions, which represent major stakes for the future of the profession, must continue to be asked and discussed in order to constantly improve representations, and will be at the heart of Creative Europe's next MEDIA program, as Vincent Soccodato pointed out.