Pendant Les Travaux, Le Cinéma Reste Ouvert

After a brief introduction and pop song, the hosts Jean-Baptiste Thoret and Stéphane Bou of Pendant Les Travaux, Le Cinéma Reste Ouvert go about answering a relevant film history question. It’s worth contrasting with Michel Ciment’s Projection Privée as they are both hour-long shows on directors both important and esoteric. Thoret and Bou’s show has a youthful and energetic quality while Ciment’s show is older and more mature. If Ciment's show sometimes feels like a mouthpiece for Positif, which unconditionally promotes its collaborators and its friend's films – almost like a Eyes Wide Shut conspiracy –, instead Thoret and Bou interrogates this ethos and proposes a counter-canon, which proposes a different way to look at films. Thoret has written books on Seventies American cinema, Michael Cimino, road movies, Brian de Palma, and Dario Argento; which provide the background for the show. Along with a focus on a less well-known French directors like Alain Guiraudie, Jean-Claude Brisseau, and Marcel Ophüls. The show treats contemporary questions like how cinema can interrogate capitalism and politics, blockbusters and video games, philosophy and digital cinema, criticism and cinephilia. Some of its impressive guests include Ciment, Jean-Loup Bourget, Nicolas Saada, Emmanuel Burdeau, Antoine de Baecque, Laurent Vachaud, Vincent Malausa, and Nicole Brenez. The show has been around for two years and now since France Inter has gotten a new director it might get cancelled. If you would like it to return please sign this petition. It looks like Bou has two new shows now with Florence Colombani, Citizen Cannes and Le Festival en 18 Palmes, which is great and that are well worth listening to, but hopefully Pendant Les Travaux, Le Cinéma Reste Ouvert returns in the fall.