05 · 10 · 18 May 1968: From the Langlois affaire to the Directors’ Fortnight Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard Alonso Díaz de la Vega @diazdelavega1 Fifty years ago Paris was burning. It wasn’t engulfed in literal flames—although it almost was—but in the symbolic fire of revolution. After the police invaded the universities of Nanterre and Paris—the campus which we now know as the Sorbonne—, French students responded in May 1968 with massive protests which were soon joined by the workers of France. By the end of the month, François Mitterand and Pierre Mendès France were announcing—each on his own—that they were ready to form a new government. President Charles de Gaulle sneaked out of the country for a few hours but then returned to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections in which, contrary to his fears, his conservative party had a landslide victory which ended with the illusions of a leftist government. Within the protest movement, French filmmakers made a noteworthy contribution that began gestating since February, when Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired by minister of Culture André Malraux. Langlois had become an essential figure in French cinema by hiding documents and films to avoid their destruction in the hands of the German invaders. Along with Lotte Eisner, Langlois saved France’s cinematic legacy and after the war he would turn it into the Cinémathèque’s archive. Inevitably, French filmmakers, particularly the New Wave group, reacted passionately to his dismissal. Directors Fortnight's first edition, 1969. Motivated by the events since Langlois’ dismissal, a vast group of filmmakers which included Jacques Rivette, Robert Bresson, and Louis Malle, formed in June 1968 the French Directors Guild, in order to protect the “artistic, moral, professional, and economic liberties” of all filmmakers. Accordingly they founded in 1969 the Directors’ Fortnight, a haven concentrated on unrecognized talents from around the world, parallel to the Cannes Festival. Masters like Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Spike Lee, the brothers Dardenne and Michael Haneke, along with many others have made a name for themselves there. It’s an invaluable legacy of 1968, a year which has left an essential mark in cinema as it has in history.
