On Friday February 25, Cesarized directors – Arthur Harari, César for Best Original Screenplay, Elie Girard, César for Best Fiction Short Film – took to the stage at the Olympia wearing, as a symbol, a discreet brooch in the shape of a key on their gala outfit. Other artists, such as Nelly Quettier, César for Best Editing for Annette, have set up this famous key as a model to follow in their acceptance speeches. On Friday, many therefore had a thought for La Clef, the last associative cinema in Paris, now plunged into darkness, projectors off. Officially closed since 2018 but occupied since September 2019 by militant cinephiles who opposed its buyer, the SOS group, La Clef has been regularly threatened with expulsion for three years. Unfortunately, the almost extraordinary mobilization enjoyed by this small cinema in the Latin Quarter in Paris from the public – who flocked en masse from 6 a.m. to attend the screenings – and artists, from Mathieu Amalric to Annie Ernaux via Jonathan Cohen and Agnès Jaoui, will not have been enough. At midnight on Tuesday February 1, the last eviction notice expired and the cinema was evacuated by the police on Tuesday morning. “The Key is the core, but it goes far beyond” It was in 1969 that Maurice Frankfurter buys this old building in the very militant and student district of Censier-Daubenton in Paris to turn it into a cinema. Ten years later, in 1980, the Caisse d’Epargne works council bought it to make it available to its employees, leaving the operation of the two projection rooms to the historical employees. of profitability, this place of transmission will be saved in extremis until the owner puts the building up for sale in 2015. Three years later, the last associative cinema in Paris lowers the curtain until its “illegal” reopening in September 2019, in opposition to the takeover project by the SOS group. This behemoth of the social and solidarity economy planned to put 4.2 million euros on the table to buy back the walls of this cinema in the now very bourgeois 5th arrondissement of the capital, making activists fear a simple project of speculation in movable property. Thibaut, director and member of the La Clef Revival collective, explains to us: “The objective of buying cinema to make it a common good is still relevant. We find ephemeral places very beautiful, but we want to perpetuate a place of autonomous and young culture and a historic neighborhood cinema.In a Paris that is constantly gentrifying, it is a political approach to dream of this common space and free access to people in precarious situations, young people and to minorities in the heart of Ve. La Clef is the core, but it goes far beyond.”Two hours after the end of the evacuation of La Clef on Tuesday morning, the SOS group announced that it was abandoning its takeover project, leaving the future of the last associative cinema in Paris in suspense. Héléna, director and photographer, also a member of La Clef Revival, assures us: “Now we are waiting for mediation from the Ministry of Culture. We are no longer occupying the premises, so we have to come and talk to us. Others cinemas you welcome us for screenings and round tables. La Clef, it’s not over, we still have things to say.” “La Clef de 6 à 8″To save this associative place with both collective and committed programming, the association screened short and feature films there continuously, from 6 a.m. to midnight during single sessions at free price. , far from the hectic pace of traditional distribution channels. The collective also offered creative workshops with young filmmakers, worked on image education, radio programs and a fanzine. Then, between midnight and 6 a.m., the activists took turns for an occupation citizen of the place so that they cannot be dislodged. “It is impossible to quantify the number of hours we spent at La Clef, but since we learned that we were threatened with immediate expulsion a month ago, we were almost all present six days a week, day and night”, Thibaut tells us. In this alternative cinematheque, the activists also organized prestigious meetings (Céline Sciamma, Leos Carax or Jean-Luc Godard had their habits there) and, in the last month of mobilization, more than 6,000 cinephiles and supporters passed through the doors of La Clef. “The debate organized around La Naissance des pieuvres with Céline Sciamma, Adèle Haenel and Pauline Acquart is one of the most memorable moments for me”, remembers Héléna. And if the speeches of Caesarized artists are sometimes mocked for their political positions a little vain, some really made the difference last Friday on the stage of the Olympia. Thibaut says: “We received a lot of support, but I think that those who counted the most were those of the director of photography Caroline Champetier, who spoke on behalf of Leos Carax and Nelly Quettier, who openly supported at the Cesar ceremony. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back and that’s when the SOS group decided to withdraw from the project.” When the police arrived on Tuesday morning, the team of activists launched the screening of Cléo de 5 à 7 by Agnès Varda. “Our desire was not to leave without having launched this film. It was officially Cléo from 5 to 7, but it became La Clef from 6 to 8”, conclude Héléna and Thibaut. Long live La Clef.
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