This article examines the relationship between French film funding and the regional cinemas of the Southern Cone of Latin America (Cono Sur) and the Maghreb. Since the 1980s, France has steadily increased its support of filmmakers in francophone regions, expanding its funding of organizations and financial aids like Fonds Sud (now Aide aux cinémas du monde) and Fonds Image de la Francophonie in order to promote francophone filmmaking throughout the world. In the cases of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay) and the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia), the opportunities provided by French funding and the interest in co-producing global cinema coincides with a rise in local productions within these regions. A French co-production status also promotes the global visibility of other national cinemas. Yet the discourse surrounding the types of narratives shown in French co-productions and the ways in which filmmakers are limited by funding stipulations highlights an ongoing issue that filmmakers from the Southern Cone and the Maghreb face when accepting France’s financial support. The combination of France’s global financing of films and the expanding interest in Southern Cone and North African cinema establishes a complex relationship around French funding institutions, francophone regions (as well as their relationships to the term “francophone”), and identity within an increasingly globalized film space. By examining the history and current state of these regions’ cinemas, as well as their relationships to France, this article analyzes the positive and negative effects of France’s history in financially shaping the national (and regional) cinemas of southern Latin America and the Maghreb, the current landscape of Southern Cone and North African filmmaking, and the possibilities for change in transnational filmmaking in the future.

Anti-Asian racism and violence have escalated around the world, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in France, racially motivated violence against people perceived as “Asian” was already on the rise, even before the pandemic. Frustrated by the lack of public outrage and the inaction of government authorities, people of Asian heritage in France – who have come from a diverse range of countries, over several generations – have begun mobilizing collectively in new and more ambitious ways. Young people, in particular, have taken to the internet. Using social media platforms, they have not only organized in-person events, including protest marches in central Paris that have numbered in the tens of thousands of people, but have also cultivated online communities focusing on racial solidarity with just as many followers. Social media accounts, hashtags, YouTube webseries, podcasts, and internet-based projects aiming to combat anti-Asian racism while also promoting intersectional racial justice, have thus proliferated in the past few years. This article examines a few prominent examples of these works, including the viral video “#AsiatiquesDeFrance” (2017), to argue that all of these forms convey common messages that deal explicitly with issues of cultural assimilation, national belonging, racial othering, and racism faced by people of Asian heritage in France.

Gender identity expression continues to be the subject of public discourse. In the past few decades, scholars and members of the general public have questioned the idea of a stable and binary gender identity, which has caused debates in both the anglophone and francophone worlds. Redcar, also known as Christine and the Queens, as well as Chris, is a particularly interesting public figure concerning gender identity and expression because his relationship has evolved throughout his career. The artist has been remarkably open about his relationship with gender throughout the last decade, which has been in the public eye. Redcar is also someone who has found himself between the anglophone and francophone worlds – he expresses a cultural identity that is neither altogether French nor anglophone, but hybrid. As a musician whose journey with gender has been more or less public, it raises the question: How does Redcar use his music, videos, and persona to navigate and express his evolving relationship with gender? Through the use of gender and queer theories, this article demonstrates how Redcar has used these elements to examine and redefine his own gender. This essay will look specifically at the construction of his celebrity persona, followed by a lyrical analysis of the song “iT” from his first album Chaleur humaine (2014) and a scenic analysis from the music video for “5 dols/5 dollars” from his second album Chris (2018) to demonstrate how Redcar’s public experience of gender exploration works to deconstruct the idea of a static gender and instead demonstrates how gender is always in a process of renegotiation.

This article, informed by concerns of queer theory, features of celebrity journalism, and ethical developments in journalism, discusses how British and French generalist press coverage of the popular music artist Héloïse Letissier and his associated public media personas, conceives of the term queer. Coverage relating to the term emphasizes (auto)biographical and career developments, gender and sexual identities, non-normativity, a lack of commercial motivation, mainstreaming (although not unproblematically so), and creativity informed by negative personal experiences and the development of “transfilial” (Provencher) bonds. Moreover, coverage of queerness is, for the most part, sympathetic and respectful.

It’s complicated. For me, the experience is that the more you explore, the less you’re sure, in a way. And the more you explore, the more it changes. I say I’m a woman, but I’m exploring desire as a force of chaos that surprises me. And through desire, I get to explore many different identities. I don’t feel like I’m trapped in my woman’s body. I’m loving that woman’s body, actually. I love also the versatility of it – how easily I can look like a young boy, if I want. And my eroticism is made of hesitations and doubts and being uncomfortable in lust. I keep on exploring. I think I present a broken mirror instead of something reassuring, probably. (Heaney)

This article reads 2016 as a breakthrough year for Christine and the Queens in the United Kingdom, particularly England. Through analyzing a select corpus of interviews and performances, I argue that the artist’s personal breakthroughs occur in a context of changing UK–European relations, and indeed of the ever-changing persona of Christine, who changes constantly and yet stays the same in crucial regards. I read such evolving identities and relations with reference to the thought of the Martinican theorist Édouard Glissant.

More than many pop artists, Christine and the Queens performs cover versions of familiar songs, often on live TV or radio shows. His selections frequently are interpretations of hits from the 1980s and 1990s. However they are more than the chance to share a nostalgic trip with the audience. In France, he often chooses familiar songs by much-loved singers from the French tradition, thus reassuring them of his Frenchness, despite his growing position on the world stage. On platforms overseas, he often selects huge hits by global anglophone stars, so claiming his place amongst the most successful international British and American performers, albeit that he is French. Using interviews, reviews, and music videos, my research looks in detail at two examples of cover versions by Christine and the Queens, one in French and one in English, exploring why these songs were selected for these particular moments. First, I examine his performance of Mylène Farmer’s “California” on Taratata Live in September 2018. In choosing this song, Chris aligns himself not only with one of the most provocative and daring French singers, but also one deeply supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. The track, with its topics of escape and reinvention in Los Angeles, has resonance for Chris’s own experience, and the original video shares themes of transactional sex and power with Christine and the Queens’s own video for “5 Dollars.” Next, I consider his performance of George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” at the Global Citizen in September 2021. Chris sets himself alongside a very high-profile, gay artist who battled to reclaim his musical and personal identity after an early career in a worldfamous, highly commercial pop duo. In doing so, he lays out his desire to break from the shackles of the success of his first album, Chaleur humaine , and to have the freedom to evolve, as an artist and in his place as a trans man.