Culture ... an affair of state, it is a historical novel journey to the heart of the Fifth Republic Cultural Affairs of France. Malraux, first holder of the ministerial office in 1959, to Catherine Tasca, in 2002, the film tells the scenes of major events during the cultural policy of the state: the case Langlois around the Cinematheque Landowski case-Boulez on the reform of music, the construction of Beaubourg, the Louvre, the conditions under which the music festival has been decided or that the cultural exception publicized. From archives, interviews or testimony, it is a political reading of unexpected contemporary artistic life which is at issue here.