The limited film diffusion was to avoid the promotion of the German language and to privilege film in the French version. In fact, a specific censor in Alsace and in Moselle was set up. With Nazis coming to power in Germany, its increased. The French authorities feared what German films could express because of the control of the production in Germany by the minister of propaganda.
Due to the decline of the attendance signalled by the managers of movie theatres in Alsace and Moselle, the government had to make its control of film distribution more flexible. From July 1934, movie theaters in the territories were allocated a quota of authorised German-language talking films and a mandatory quota of French-language films. These quotas were changed in function of cities and the population’s affection for German language. It was a new local adaptation that never happened in the French cinema’s history because it took linguistic features in consideration.
For example, in Metz, movie theaters may screen between 10 and 60 percent German films, in Strasbourg between 10 and 50 percent, in Thionville between 20 and 50 percent and in Mulhouse between 10 and 75 percent. The French authorities wanted to meet the expectations of German-speaking audiences. As a result of this policy, German films remained widely screened in the three departments throughout the 1930s.
Photo 33 : BNUS – Newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles de Strasbourg, 08/01/1939. Advertisement published in the DNS a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War, announcing a double bill featuring Zarah Leander to mark the release of the film Magda (in German: Heimat, 1938, directed by Carl Froelich) and a repeat screening of La Habanera. This program was extended for a second week. This testifies to the popularity of German cinema and its actors and actresses in the region.
Photo 34 : AVES (815W153) – Movie Theater Union Theater (U.T, 3, “Francs-Bourgeois” street, Strasbourg) in 1937 with a double poster in French and in German for the film Storm Over Mont Blanc (Stürme uber den Mont Blanc, 1930, Arnold Fanck).