Cultures on Screen

Cultures on Screen Dialogue with the creative community Looking at 27 years of Catholics working in cinema (1979-2004) Let me start my presentation by quoting three opinions. The first one is an old one. It was expressed around 1920 by Msgr. Charost, bishop of Lille, in France. I found it published in a compilation of a series of documents issued by the Churches about media. I used it in a booklet I wrote about Catholics and Cinema. That compilation was prepared by a group called “Mediatech” linked to the Catholic University of Lyon, under the title: "Les médias.Textes des Eglises" (Centurion, Paris, 1990). That group does not exist anymore. On page 34, one could read the following: (I translate it from the French) "Ce peuple de Flandre… aime à suivre, "These people of Flanders like to follow, passif et réceptif, des fictions lumineuses passive and susceptible, fictions made plus irréelles par leurs combinaisons more unreal by their utter flimsiness than fantaisistes que par leur inconsistance by their fantastic creations. Fascinatio impalpable. Fascinatio nugacitatis nugacitatis obscurat bona. And by a obscurat bona. Et par un changement change so pitiful, its imagination, up to tout aussi déplorable, son imagination, here so simple and quiet, becomes jusqu'ici simple et tranquille, devient aflame through the undefined shock of ardente sous le choc indéfini des images the images rendered, by the magic of the rendues, par la magie de la lumière et par light and by the romantic situations, more les situations romanesques, plus seductive than the reality! séductrices que la réalité même! … human nature is miserable, because a … Que la nature humaine est misérable, canvas where run shadows which do not puisqu'une toile où courent des ombres even leave trace becomes a screen qui n'y laissent même pas une trace between the Christian people and the devient un écran entre le peuple chrétien heaven to which it is called!" et le ciel où il est appelé!" When, in 1979, I became the secretary general of OCIC, the International Catholic Organization for Cinema, some of my friends were thinking I was giving up serious work for something like an appearance on a screen, something which seemed to be reality, but was not at all. Was I choosing a canvas where shadows flit, a canvas that was going to become a screen between myself and my Christian vocation to the heaven? I was at that time the chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission, in the French- speaking part of Belgium. Part of my responsibility was to meet delegations like the group of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (The Grandmothers) constituted as an association in the Argentine Republic in 1977 in order to investigate their children and grandchildren's disappearance, in hopes of finding them. I also had to denounce the collusion of some Belgian banks supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa. (I visited Soweto in 1976, after the riots). And now, I was going to spend my time looking at movies! During my first visit to the United States, as secretary general of OCIC, I met some representatives of the American film industry. One of them was astonished. “There is a Catholic organization for cinema? Why? Film is entertainment. Is there also a Catholic association for football?” Starting from those two opinions, I could scarcely reach the point where I could indicate that movies are an extraordinary place for meeting the cultures of the world and for sharing the spiritual journey of artists which can enlighten our own lives. My third quotation will help me more to reach such a point. The Berlin wall collapsed on the 9 of November 1989. In February 1990, I attended the Berlin Film Festival. For the first time, a number of filmmakers from the former communist countries, those who had been awarded prizes by OCIC juries, came to the ecumenical reception organized during the festival. I always remember the Russian filmmaker Alexander Askoldov telling me that the OCIC award had been for them, in Russia, Poland, Hungary… ‘the symbol of freedom’. Due to the fact that the films they made were not in accordance with the regime, these filmmakers were in danger of being imprisoned. But having received an OCIC award, they were still free, saw their films shown at least in some art theatres, and were able to continue to produce new films. The paradox was that Askoldov had not been privileged with such a "Freedom Prize". He had shot his film The Commissar in 1967. But it was seen as pro-Zionist by the communist regime. The filmmaker was excluded from the communist party. His film was banned for twenty years and was not released until 1987, when the Soviet Union entered the period of glasnost. It won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival in 1988 and the OCIC prize. For him, our prize came too late. What is our main role? After mentioning those three opinions, it will not be a surprise to you if I recognize that I started my work in OCIC with the fundamental question: "What must the main role of such a Catholic organization in the field of cinema really be?” To protect the Christian people from the danger of a fascinating art? To help them to select the best entertaining movies that will help them overcome the weariness of their daily lives? To accompany the journey of filmmakers, defending their values and encouraging resistance in difficult social or political contexts?". When I started as secretary general, OCIC had developed a model for the presence of the Catholic Church in the field of cinema. That model was expressed by the initials “N.O.”, which stands for “National Office”. In each country, the local Church was supposed to set up a commission which would rate all films presented in cinemas. That commission had to be representative of the audiences: young people, parents, educators, and at least one theologian. In order to help that commission to judge the films, a documentation centre had to be established, with all the press material concerning films, filmmakers, actors, etc… The ratings of the commission were to be published via a publication of the National Office, via posters on the doors of the churches, or via the Catholic press. That model, influenced by the American experience of the Legion of Decency and backed by the encyclical, Vigilanti Cura (Pope Pius XI, 1936), was still the model promoted after World War II up to the late 2 seventies. Such National Offices could be found in most European countries, in the United States and Canada, in some Latin American countries (including Cuba) and in Australia. The centre built in St Louis, Senegal, by the French missionary, Father Jean Vast, was strongly inspired by this pattern. It is true that that model had given birth to some quality work in film analysis and that, in Catholic circles, many talented teachers, academics, thinkers and journalists had produced remarkable works on the world of cinema. But when I started to visit OCIC members in different African and Asian countries, it was obvious that such a model was not applicable in countries for example where the Catholic Church was a very small minority. New ways had to be researched. Dialogue with the creative community There was another model promoted at international level by OCIC. It was, through the presence of juries in film festivals, through awards given for films. This was a golden opportunity to meet filmmakers and to open a dialogue with the creative community. Although you could hardly approach filmmakers, producers, or actors in festivals like Cannes, Venice or Berlin, there were less prestigious events which were, being hosted in the same hotel, opportunities for participating in the same debates. One could be on familiar terms with great personalities. I remember spending a week in Troia (1994, Portugal) with Krzysztof Kieslowski who was conducting a seminar on his trilogy: Three Colors: Blue, White, Red. Past contacts with Ken Loach gave me the possibility of inviting him to be the honorary guest for the celebration of thirty years’ presence of the ecumenical jury in Cannes (2004). The contacts were even easier in Africa, at the Ouagadougou film festival, FESPACO, where African filmmakers arrived, bringing themselves the precious rolls of their films. Gaston Kaboré was there with Wend Kuuni (The Gift of God, 1982). Idrissa Ouedraogo came to me at that time with some of his first shorts: Les Ecuelles, Issa le tisserand. I bought his copies. In 1990, with his film Tilai, he was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes festival. This presence in FESPACO became the source of a collection of monographs on African cinema that I started to publish with the help of UNESCO and the French ACCT (Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique). The director of that collection of books was my fromer professor at the University of Louvain, professor Victor Bachy. All national offices of OCIC were invited to develop the same kind of dialogue with the local film industry, to promote quality films in the context of events like local festivals or even to organize ceremonies to honour the best films produced every year in their country. OCIC Sri Lanka, with its Salutation was famous for celebrating the best of Sri Lankan cinema. Fr. Poruthota and, later, Father Gamini were proud to show me famous actors and actresses on stage, mixing with the highest Catholic Church authorities. They wanted to give an image of the Church celebrating art, recognizing the importance of cinema and the commitment of filmmakers to respect and promote values through their films.

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