“The period with the virus will last, let us do our jobs”

The cinema hall of The Alhambra in Marseille, currently closed due to the health crisis, also has an educational and cultural mission, and normally welcomes 7,000 pupils from kindergarten to high school. For lack of being able to welcome them, The Alhambra go to them.

franceinfo: How do you maintain the link with this part of your audience?

William Benedetto: We cannot do it at home, so we have reversed the proposal and we are the ones who walk around, we go to establishments to bring to life something that resembles the cinema session, even if the experience of the theater is not is not the same.

We built a device called the mission Gagarin, named after the film that bears this name, it is one of the films that are on the shelves of distributors waiting to be able to live, find their audience. It’s a first feature film by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh which is part of the Cannes 2020 selection, which we like a lot, and which we want to support as best as possible, when we can do it here in the room.

To prepare for his arrival in theaters, we go to establishments, mainly middle and high schools, but also to other places, from the Baumettes prison to Coco Velten, which is a place of social innovation in Marseille.

We arrive with a USB key on which there are two short films, which were directed by the directors of Gagarin. With these two courts of 15 minutes each, we offer a 30-minute screening, preceded and followed by a speaking moment. We present, we explain and then we welcome the feedback from the spectators, and even if sometimes the screening conditions are not great, we assume, we accept, that’s part of the bet.

The most important thing is to make a moment of cinema exist. It represents a hundred screenings, 1,500 spectators, it creates moments of emotion with people who tell us that they rediscover a little this particular emotion that we feel when we go to the cinema, which is not there. home, living room, bedroom, laptop, computer or television screen.

It’s a great adventure, we are very happy to carry it out for another month but above all with the hope that we will move on to phase two of the mission, the opening of the room, showing the film and welcoming the directors.

We try to invent actions so as not to sink, not to have the impression of being completely useless. You get used to everything, but there is a moment when a question arises as to the why and how …

William Benedetto, director of the Alhambra cinema in Marseille

We feel sadness, but also anger, do you think we should at least for school children allow you to reopen?

I want to say yes, I would like to restart this work with school children, it’s very important from all points of view, but it’s contradictory. If we only reopen for schools, it questions the status of this type of equipment, I do not want to confine myself to doing just that. If you have to start with that, if it’s a way to get your foot in the door, yes, but for me the main objective is for the place to be open to everyone.

We hear about health passports in the next phase, the idea of ​​having to do an entry check is impossible, it is not in our way of functioning, in our DNA. So, yes, if restarting with schoolchildren is a way of re-priming the pump, but with the aim as quickly as possible of finding a connection with the public. It is really important to restart for us, the public, the distributors, the producers.

Yes there is a form of anger, but I don’t want to be in a confrontation, I more want to make arguments to tip the scales. We are in a period where we are with this virus, it will last, please try to ensure that we, the cinemas, but also the places of shows, the museums, the bars, the restaurants , we can at least exercise our trades, and ensure that social life is as easy as possible for all the inhabitants of this country.

The Alhambra

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