The prestigious director participates in ARP meetings in Le Touquet. Hundreds of professionals discuss the future of cinema at conferences, particularly questions of financing and creative freedom
The essentials of the day: our exclusive selection
Every day, our editorial team reserves the best regional news for you. A selection just for you, to stay in touch with your regions.
France Télévisions uses your email address to send you the newsletter “Today’s essentials: our exclusive selection”. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Our privacy policy
At the Trois As du Touquet cinema, Claude Lelouch has a smile: “Cinema is the place where we dream the most, it’s a popular and simple art. Our eyes, they are the most beautiful camera in the world! We are all filmmakers, there are 8 billion people filming on earth. The brain is the most beautiful editing room, it's what's left when you've cut everything! “. The 87-year-old director and author of 51 films is participating in discussions at the 34th meetings of the ARP, the society bringing together authors, directors and producers.
This is the 4th time that this event has taken place in Le Touquet. Nearly 500 people are traveling to the seaside town of Pas-de-Calais to discuss the future of the 7th art and discuss ways to perpetuate this sector and guarantee freedom of creation. Crucial questions at a time when platforms offering video content are multiplying. The director of “Un Homme, Une Femme” has a confident outlook on cinema, despite the current context: “Cinema has always been in danger since 1895, he is in crisis all the time and this crisis makes him progress. Lhe cinema is an art of technology, each time new instruments arrive, new waves like talking, color, cinemascope and all the devices that allow filming.”
“Cinema has not said its last word”
It is therefore not streaming and the proliferation of platforms that worries him: “When television arrived, we said to ourselves that cinema was ruined, but no! The two can coexist. There is no more wonderful place to see a movie than the cinema, on a giant screen, with people around you. I think at some point people will get tired of series on platforms, on TV and they will come back. At the moment the cinema is doing well, it there are three, four films that are a hit. The whole of France goes to the cinema. You don't see the same film on a 300 square meter screen as you do on your TV or cell phone. Cinema has not said its last word, but there have been several cycles, he lost his clientele, but he finds them again every time. So far everything we've found is worse than the cinema! “
He takes advantage of this meeting to present his latest feature film “Finally”, with Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstein and Michel Boujenah. On this occasion he speaks about the pleasure he has in making films and presenting them to the public: “We do this job for the spectators, the real producers of my films are them, without them I would not have made 51 films. It's always nice to meet them, see them, feel… They are always one film ahead of us, They are always right even when they are wrong! The public is always right! In the cinema, we dream and as we never die of an overdose of dreams, I have benefited from it during these 60 years!
Among the other personalities present during these meetings, Céline Sallette, co-president of the ARP. The actress and director of the film “Niki” just released in theaters and retracing the life of the artist Niki de Saint Phalle. Director Michel Hazanavicius also made the trip. He takes the opportunity to present “The Most Precious of Goods”, his latest animated feature film.
