Free Screening

Lumière! The Adventure Begins

Dir/Narration: Thierry Frémaux
Prod Cos: Sorties d'usine Productions, Institut Lumière, The French National Centre of Cinema
2016 | B&W | DCP | French | Chi & Eng Subtitles | 90min

Free admission by ticket

Thierry Frémaux, who heads the Cannes Film Festival and curates the Lumière Film Festival, directs a lively and affectionate tribute to the pioneers of cinema, the Lumière Brothers. Lumière! The Adventure Begins brings together 108 short films, each around 50 seconds long, selected from a catalogue of over 1,400 works and meticulously restored in 4K. Far from being merely technical innovators, the Lumière brothers emerge here as intuitive and inventive image-makers, already exploring the artistic possibilities of the medium as early as 1895 at the birth of the cinema.

Alongside well-known titles such as Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory and Arrival of a Train, the film showcases many lesser-seen gems, now vividly brought back to life on the big screen. Frémaux’s insightful narration guides the viewer through these early works, revealing how the first filmmakers set the camera angle, determined the depth of field and designed the camera movement, thereby laying the foundations of cinematic language. These brief yet striking clips portray everyday life with remarkable immediacy and charm. Both an illuminating history lesson and a cinematic delight, Lumière! The Adventure Begins invites audiences to rediscover the wonder of the moving image at its very origins.

The contents of the programme do not represent the views of the presenter. The presenter reserves the right to change the programme should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.