“This is to say goodbye and thank you,” said Gwen Deglise, the longtime head programmer of the American Cinematheque, from the stage of the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on Friday, September 9^th, 2022. The audience, patrons, and team members responded with an emotional standing ovation and “Thank You, Gwen” shout-outs.

Deglise served the nonprofit organization – which was established in 1985 and has been supported by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – for 25 years with true, and rare, altruism. She gave it her heart and soul, as is depicted in the short Agnes Varda film “The Little Story of Gwen from French Brittany”, screened on the same night.

She started as a young volunteer fresh from France with an already well-developed love of cinema. Over the last two and a half decades she helped shape the American Cinematheque into a cultural institution with a mission to “entertain, enlighten and inspire.” She embraced the human values – the ones that only lately rocked the media industry – with an open mind and a true sense of delight in diversity, equity and inclusion.

But, realizing her own mortality in the face of her parents’ failing health, she decided to leave the American Cinematheque and “pass on the baton.” Deglise was feted by her team over three days. There were showings of some of her favorite films, and private and public gatherings with audiences, members, and volunteers.

“Yesterday was my last day at the office,” she told the HFPA during a zoom interview on September 14^th. “I was trying to finish some accounting, send out emails, clean up my desk. I had a luncheon at the Academy. So, I got up from my desk at about 11:30 and started to walk out. All the staff stood up and everyone made a line and applauded me going out,” she recounted, humbled by the bittersweet experience.

“I was choking, I could no longer talk,” she added, still on the verge of tears. “The last person I saw going out was the first person I met when I came in, Nancy Winters, who is still in charge of the interns and the volunteers, who was there when I arrived as a volunteer.”

“I’m very, very grateful that I could close this amazing adventure, close it officially, and have the chance to say goodbye and to feel celebrated! And to feel celebrated is… wow, I could never have imagined…”

This pure thrill at being celebrated never came across as boastful. Given her total dedication to the art of cinema in an industry where money, and only money, speaks, such unabashed exhilaration accentuated the value and quality of her selfless work. “To me, it’s about teamwork. When people think it’s me [doing the work], it’s never just me, it’s everyone, the organization, the institution,” she affirmed.

A mix of emotions, from fear and sadness to excitement, has been topped off by a preeminent sense of delight. “There’s a lot of joy because it is my decision [to leave]. We often look around us and we see people who do not know how to leave. There’s a moment when people should pass on the baton to others who are younger, better… Don’t hold on when it’s time for the organization, or yourself, to grow.”

She feels that she is leaving the cultural institution in the capable hands of a recently expanded team working under the guidance of Executive Director Ken Scherer. At the same time, the urgency to reflect upon the “end of life” is pressed upon her by the fact that, back in France, both her parents are in their last days. One is dying of cancer, the other from Alzheimer’s. “I have a huge reaction,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I say no! I cannot continue my life living what I already know. It has to be unknown and new.”

The words continued to flow out from the depths: “If this is how we die, I have to take every risk I can [in order] to be alive. I have nothing to fear. If I want to walk the world, I walk the world… Of course, the first thing I want to do is spend time with my parents. Take care of them, say goodbye. The rest is to be invented.”

“I am not just Gwen at the American Cinematheque,” she offered in a low, accepting yet sad tone. “My true nature is to be contemplative. So, I have to be Gwen with nature, Gwen with reading and learning and thinking… and mostly feeling.”

The intensity of her work in the last 25 years didn’t leave a lot of room for “thinking, living, being,” she explained, once again surrendering to the sadness and necessity of her realization. “I cannot die at my desk, even though my desk is a movie theater!”

Among the films she programmed for the weekend of September 9 to 11 was her childhood favorite, Hugo and Josephine (1968), the story of a boy and a girl who meet unexpectedly one summer and befriend Hugo’s uncle, a gardener – the three of them spend their blissful days enjoying each other’s company.

“What was beautiful is that [Hugo and Josephine] was a goodbye movie. The last scene is all about how to say goodbye to people you dearly love, to the places you love. There aren’t even end credits. There’s the goodbye scene and that’s it.”

When the uncle leaves without saying goodbye, the kids find him on the road driving away in his truck with his household things. Together, they get the table and the chairs out, and have a picnic right there and then. When the uncle leaves again, this time for good, he has instructed the kids to simply say “See you another time”. Nothing more. Because words cannot describe the avalanche of feelings.

So, thank you for your service, Gwen. Goodbye, good luck, see you again.