The purpose of this article is to open a discussion on utilitarian approaches to the territorial embeddedness of creative activities, using the concept of "scene. This concept highlights the desire to create as a defining feature of artistic creation, compared to other human activities. The article presents the results of a survey conducted with stakeholders in the independent film scenes in northeastern Paris. It stresses the importance of self-training and selfproduction in the emergence of these independent cinema scenes, and highlights the role played by cultural policies in their structuring. Yet these independent scenes seem disconnected from urban and economic development policies, despite their support for creative industries. The concept of scene offers an alternative theoretical framework to analyse and understand the local anchoring of an artistic community led by the share of aesthetic or moral values: for the ones, a certain vision of filmmaking based and traditional techniques, for the others, a political will to voice as postcolonial subjects.