(Editorial) “French wedding”, by Delia Balland

In the summer of 2024, by chance of a last minute hotel reservation, I arrived in Moëlan-sur-Mer, in Finistère. I was passing through this town of nearly 7,000 inhabitants when Pierre Niney, from the top of the poster of the Count of Monte Cristo, stopped me with a dark look. Start my vacation at the Le Kerfany cinema? I inquired. There was not a single place left for the same evening. And for future sessions, it was better to get your ticket right away.

Two days later, I waited in the drizzle, in the happy line of spectators who came with family or friends. No one in the beautiful, renovated room was shy about their pleasure. In the credits of the film by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, the Île-de-France and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions border the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images, the CNC. Like Occitanie, they provided numerous filming locations and supported the production. Because a new audiovisual dynamic is reshaping the France of cinema and series. A plural and decentralized France, born from the rapprochement between creation and regions. It has now been proven that they have everything to gain. And reciprocally, films benefit from these local springboards, the Cannes Festival being their showcase. Cannes where our journalist Catherine Escrive has the honor of being part of the ecumenical jury prize this year.

The first chef to join the Academy of Fine Arts, chef Guy Savoy is also delighted with “our uniqueness which is due to an exceptional geography, where everything can grow”. Just like the civilizing effect of a place – he thinks of the restaurant – where “nothing is demonstrative, everything is attentive”.

Without denying a context that is not conducive to spending, let us invite the newly elected municipal councilors to avoid hasty measures and to do the accounts honestly. Above all, accept that fruitful decisions are revealed after the fact. Who, in Moëlan-sur-Mer, imagined that a lasting associative institution was being created when, in 1930, the priest, passionate about cinema, obtained land from the bishopric for volunteers to build a courtyard and hang a white sheet over it? Creating favorable conditions and letting talents, daring and work unfold freely, trusting in what will be born, is perhaps naive. Visionary for sure.