Français
Traveling cinema
In France, we can say that traveling cinema in rural areas is a legacy of the Front populaire. In the Finistère region of Brittany, agricultural clubs were set up for “intellectual emancipation”, fostering equal opportunities in access to knowledge. After the war, this movement led to the creation of the National confederation of rural clubs and organizations for the coordination and development of rural areas (FNFR) and the National federation for sport in rural areas (FNSMR). These two entities now include 2,700 rural clubs and organizations, 200,000 members and volunteers and 1,000 full-time instructors. Traveling cinema developed at the end of the 1970s. The gradual disappearance of movie theaters in isolated areas led to experimentation with this type of local screening in the Ardèche region of France. At the beginning of the 1980s the movement accelerated — and continued with globalization, increasing the desertification and social withdrawal in the countryside. Let us take the example of the Coordination committee for the Monts du Lyonnais. In 28 years it has organized 7,000 screenings: every two weeks, a current film is shown for two weeks in the cooperative’s 19 districts. Tickets are €4.50 (€3 for under-12s and groups) 50% of sales is paid back to the distributor, and the other half goes to the village and the cooperative. “It is local cinema like a local grocery store when you have trouble finding a supermarket less than 15 kilometers away” sums up Paul Maridet, head of the project. “At least, it is close to people.” The Web site www.mouvement-rural.org gives a glimpse of the network that has been established in France.
