Film & Politics is a progressive e-mail discussion group. Only members can read and participate in discussions. When applying to join, please write a brief introduction in the “comment to owner” field. We'll approve your application within 24 hours, and your self-introduction will be posted to present you to our members.

We construe both terms in our title, "Film" and "Politics," broadly: Everything is political, so we don't rule out posts on any topic. Sharing opinions and information on a variety of topics can only help us get to know each other better and make the process more fun.

Our discussions are certainly not limited to film, a term that is rapidly becoming metaphorical anyway. All communications media are fair game: comics, radio, television, the web, newspapers, magazines, video games, songs, new and old stuff.

Nevertheless, many of us are film buffs who subscribe to the auteur theory. That means that we aren't particularly interested in re-arguing the pros and cons of the theory here, but we won't kick you out for not being an auteurist.

Since a group like this needs an ancestor, we go informally by the name of The Raymond Sapene Group. Sapene is the pen-name used by Serge Daney, the editor-in-chief of the French magazine Cahiers du cinema, to write Baby Doc on Trial, a polemic against the Duvalier regime in Haiti that is reportedly still being used by militants there 30 years later.

Our aim is more modest. We hope that auteurists, who tend to know a lot about movies, can bring their perspective and knowledge of film history to discussions of film and politics, while learning from those who come from other backgrounds and traditions.

This happened when Daney's generation of Cahiers critics was radicalized by May 1968. The ideas which were developed in the magazine at that time have fueled thinking about film and politics ever since. Perhaps The Raymond Sapene Group can contribute to the discussion.