Lecler, Romain <br/><br/>
A Tailor-made Diversity 

 -  2017.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 51 
<br/><br/> A French commercial diplomacy of cultural diversity supports movies by foreign authors coming from cinematographically dominated countries (also referred to as “from the South”). It does so all along their trajectories: When they are coproduced by French professionals, spotted and monitored by specialized diplomats, financially supported and funded, selected and awarded in film festivals, distributed in French art movie theaters, and – finally – exported abroad. Nonetheless, far from compensating for global inequalities in terms of film production, this type of support reinforces them. While it allows moviemakers from the South to express themselves, it submits them to a conditioning process that we analyze by focusing on the Fonds Sud, which financed 484 movies from 1984 to 2011. Wherever the movies come from, they are constantly required to tell a story anchored in the everyday reality, to document the political situation of its country of origin, and to appeal to the more universal dimensions of consciousness and emotions. Within the Fonds Sud committee, one finds a consensus on selection criteria: the movies have to be “authentic,” meaning they must be clear, plausible, sincere, original, and relevant when presenting the social, political, and historical reality of a country from the “South.” Eventually, they are expected to entertain and season an audience from the “North” – the one of international festivals and art movie theaters.