The image of French cinema figures Adèle Haenel and Céline Sciamma leaving the Césars film awards ceremony to the cry of "La honte !" ("Shame!") on February 28, 2020, remains ingrained in people's memories. The reason behind their anger? That year's big winners were all men, including Roman Polanski, who was accused of raping minors and won Best Director. Three years earlier, Polanski was denied the position of ceremony president, faced with the outcry of feminist activists.
This time, it's the shockwave caused by the accusations against Gérard Depardieu and, on February 6, by Judith Godrèche against directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, for violently raping a minor under the age of 15, that are casting a shadow over the 49th Césars, which will be held on Friday, February 23, in Paris. A rally against sexual and sexist violence is scheduled to take place in front of the Olympia, the Césars' venue, at 7 pm.
Haenel's famous anarchistic and furious "on se casse" ("let's get out of here") was salvation for some – celebrating the first blow dealt to an establishment deemed autocratic and outdated – and desecration for others, who saw it as a slap in the face of the film community. Four years ago, her words seemed to sound the death knell for an event which, since 1975, has celebrated the magic of cinema in a mix of good-natured irony, celebrity intermingling and advertising marketing. The boat was already rocking. A few weeks earlier, after an op-ed in Le Monde had called for more democracy within the Académie des César, the president, producer Alain Terzian, and his team ended up announcing their resignation, "so that the celebration of cinema remains a celebration."
But the celebration no longer had the same taste. The intrusion of reality has seeped in. In 2021, Jean-Pascal Zadi, receiving his award for Best Male Newcomer for Simply Black, condemned, quoting Frantz Fanon, the chlordecone scandal (involving a toxic pesticide used in the overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe); in 2022, actress Corinne Masiero showed up, without warning, half-naked with tampons as earrings; and in 2023, cable TV channel Canal+, which broadcasts the awards, cut the program while a climate activist was being removed. Conservative daily Le Figaro headlines included "César, last chance of survival." Audiences plummeted. Some are wondering whether the channel would throw in the towel.
Today, director Alain Guiraudie summed up the situation quite simply: "I don't give a damn about the Césars, I don't even pay my dues anymore. I got interested when I was nominated [eight times in 2014 for Stranger by the Lake], and then it got really boring."
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