Lumière and Cannes head Thierry Frémaux on celebrating the 130 years of cinema in 2025

March 14, 2025

3567

Euronews Culture sits down with Thierry Frémaux to discuss the 130-year anniversary of the invention of cinema, his new film honouring the legacy of the Lumière brothers, and the threats cinema faces in its second centenary.

It’s not every year you get to get celebrate a major milestone in cinema history. 2025 is one of those years.

130 years ago, Louis and Auguste Lumière invented cinema.

It’s also not every year you get to sit down with Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Institut Lumière in Lyon and the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival – who we met, rather fittingly, on the Rue du Premier Film.

The street bares this name precisely because it is the birthplace of cinema. On 19 March 1895, Louis Lumière placed his camera opposite the hangar, in front of the factory’s large gate, turned the crank on the cinématographe and filmed the workers leaving the workshops. Sortie d’usine thus became the first Lumière film and the Hangar became the first set in the history of cinema.

To mark this anniversary, Lumière, l’aventure continue!, a new feature film directed and narrated by Frémaux, will be released in cinemas on 19 March 2025.

No better time to speak to the main man himself about the legacy of the Lumière brothers, how the next century of cinema will look like, as well as the importance of protecting a precious heritage in the face of modern threats.

Euronews Culture: The documentary Lumière, l’aventure continue! features the restoration of more than 120 previously unseen Lumière shots. What struck me was that everything was already there – there’s comedy, drama, action… There are even cat videos!

Thierry Frémaux: Yes, it’s something we specialists have known for a long time, and there are a lot of things in there too about Lumière’s own position in history. He wasn’t totally an inventor, because we have Edison. We have Marey. We have Muybridge. We have a lot of people before him. So people used to say, ‘Well, Lumière didn’t really invent cinema’ and ‘Lumière is not totally a director – because we have George Meliès, and a lot of people after him’.

What we say and what I think the movie shows is that Lumière was, first, totally an inventor. There were a lot of people before him, but there is no more invention after him. Once he did that, it was done. And he is totally a director – I would say even an artist. He asked himself the same questions millions of filmmakers after him have asked themselves: What to do with the camera? What position? Where? To do what? To tell what? And at the end of his journey, he directed and produced 2000 movies and yes, 80% of what cinema would be in the future was already there.

One aspect I enjoyed about the film was how you presented the dichotomy between Edison, who put moving images inside a box, and the Lumière brothers who took cinema outside of that box. Edison’s creation was an individualistic experience, while Lumière understood the importance of the public.

TF: Yes, it’s exactly that. Lumière invented cinema many times. He invented the technique, the art, the movie theaters and the audience to see the films. Right away, he knew that he had to make a lot of films in order for the audience to go and discover something new.

But let’s say, in order to pay a tribute to Thomas Edison – and especially to William Dixon, his colleague – that he could have invented cinema. Technically, he was able to do it. Philosophically, no. And what Lumière did was the good idea: put the people in the same room, put the image on the big screen, and share the emotion of it.

The desire of people at that time is still our desire. It’s still why we want to go to cinema. Cinema won everywhere. The language of cinema, the language of images is everywhere. On TikTok, on Instagram, on video… But cinema – and now more than ever, and especially after Covid or after the triumph of the (streaming) platforms – means films, and going to cinemas.

The importance of the communal experience that defines cinemagoing…

TF: Yes, exactly.

One thing I didn’t know was that Lumière was chased out of the US by Edison. In this respect, the film has a very timely resonance because US protectionism predates Donald Trump…

TF: Yes. It’s important to remember the GATT agreement (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) – all the fights and the battles done by the US government and Europe, and in Europe by the directors, by the autheurs in order to protect themselves, to talk about cultural exception. Right away, Edison said ‘No, no, no, no, we have a law – we can’t let an invention from abroad enter the American territory if we have the local equivalent.’

After one year, everything was settled and the Lumière cinematographers came back, but what I like in this story is that Thomas Edison sent the detectives of the Pinkerton Agency – who were the same that caught Butch Cassidy and the Kid!

It shows that for Edison, cinema was something. It was a promising industry. And for Lumière too. But while Lumière sent those operators, those cinematographers all over the world in order to get the image, I’m not sure he was thinking about money…

The film’s title Lumiere, l’aventure continue! – ‘the adventure continues’ – reflects that cinema is an artform that has constantly evolved and continues to do so. One major talking point at the moment is the role of artificial intelligence and the potential threat it poses to cinema. Last year, the Prince Charles cinema in London programmed and then axed a film called The Last Screenwriter, the first film entirely written by AI. Audiences weren’t too happy about the prospect of seeing it. However, in Thessaloniki this year, they’re doing an AI tribute called “The Inevitable Intelligence”. In your opinion, do you think that AI is inevitable in the evolution of cinema?

TF: Firstly, talking about AI is talking about the digital civilization. We have had for many, many years special effects – artificial special effects. Not, argentique (analog photography) special effects, not natural special effects.

Maybe the last natural film is Apocalypse Now. The number of helicopters Coppola had in the sky are all the helicopters he had. Now you have a filmmakers saying: ‘Well, let’s talk to the special effects guy – let’s put more helicopters in the sky.’ We know that.

For example, for the restorations in the documentary, we didn’t want to use artificial intelligence. Even when the film is in bad shape. The digital, the scan, the way you can do by yourself in order to correct the images and to get the film exactly at the same shape that it was at the time. But artificial intelligence is something different. Personally, I’m not afraid at all, because we are in favour of human intelligence!

Let’s talk about literature in this respect. Of course, even for writing, people say, ‘No, it’s easy now – you ask ChatGPT and it will write the first sentence of “À la recherche du temps perdu” (“In Search of Lost Time”) by Marcel Proust.

“Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure…” No, this is the invention of a human artist!

I’m sure that we can use everything. But really, we must use it for good reasons. And you’re right, it’s a big danger – one to keep a close eye on.

A quote that stayed with me from the documentary was “Veiller à son avenir, c’est prendre soin de nous-mêmes” (“Looking after its future means looking after ourselves”), which is a beautiful sentence when it comes to cinema. And it’s something many people regularly forget – whether it’s culture cuts in Germany that threaten institutions, the number of Italian cinemas closing and being turned into supermarkets… Even when it comes to soaring rents in the UK which threaten independent cinemas… With all that’s going on, is it difficult to remain optimistic about the future of cinema?

TF: It’s not difficult to be optimistic when you’re French! Because in France, cinema is doing well. But that doesn’t come from nothing or nowhere. We have a history. We have a history with magazines, with critics, with filmmakers, with festivals.

What I like in France is that you have two spectators watching a movie, and at the end of the movie, they either kiss or they fight. I love disagreement. I love to disagree and fight, and then as Bertrand Tavernier used to say: ‘I was wrong. I’m happy I was wrong. Because I didn’t like this film before, but now I like it’.

Here in Lyon, we’ve done a lot of celebrations. I was very young when I started, and 2025 is maybe the first celebration in which we will insist in the second half of the year about the idea that Lumière invented the movie theatres. Years ago, it was usually about Lumière as a director. The artist Lumière. Now, it’s also about Lumière bringing people together because, again, cinema today means going to watch a film in cinemas.

And as Sean Baker recently said on stage at the Oscars – his “battle cry” supporting independent cinemas: films need a big screen…

TF: It’s a conversation we had many, many times with Quentin Tarantino, who owns two theatres in Los Angeles. He believes very strongly in movie theatres. And also in 35 millimeter print – which is even a strong sort of radicalism!

When it comes to the health of French cinema, the country has the privilege of having the Lumière festival, which honours the past, and Cannes, which looks to the future…

TF: Yes, and privilege is mine, and it’s a privilege and duty. A strong responsibility. But I’m not worried. For instance, imagine a kid has spent his or her whole day watching stuff on their smartphone. But if you say ‘Saturday night, we’re going to the cinema!’ You’re going to see a very happy kid. Because it’s something different.

The more we go into the future, the more cinema will be different from the rest of the images of the world. But also the same. That’s because we have to keep it the same. In a lot of countries, we can see new movie theatres opening their doors, because there are a lot of people out there who believe in cinema. Our lives were changed by the existence of cinema. We want people’s lives changed and to continue to be changed, because it was for the best.

It’s what is said in the film. With a camera, you take your responsibility. You are doing your own images and you are giving your own images to an audience. So you have to pay attention. You have to be very careful. Now, with any camera on the internet, nobody’s careful. Nobody takes the time to think about that responsibility. So you end up seeing people with their heads cut on the internet. We can see violence. We can see a lot of things. Not in cinema. Even in the 20th century, which was not a great century in terms of peace, cinema contributed to be an instrument of peace.

This role of cinema as an instrument of peace reminded me of a moment from last year’s Cannes Film Festival, when Mohammad Rasoulof entered the Grand Palais to premiere The Seed of the Sacred Fig. There was this huge standing ovation before the film even begun, and considering the background and the struggle he faced in order to bring this film to an audience, it shows that cinema is also a tool for resistance.

TF: Yes. How do you get the reality of a country like Iran better than with a movie like that? He tells us that story about about the corruption of souls inside a family, with the young generation asking the parents: ‘What are you doing to this country?’ And on top of that, it’s a romantic, poetic film.

Also a horror film, in many ways.

TF: Yes, yes – and a Western too. And that’s why we love cinema. Even when I was student, it was easier to watch Novecento by Bernardo Bertolucci in order to understand the history of Italy in the 20th century than reading books! Now, I’m not saying that I don’t like reading books, but when you are young, cinema is a gift.

I mentioned Sean Baker, who won five Oscars for Anora – which was last year’s Palme d’Or. And throughout the most recent awards season, so many Cannes titles were dominating the conversation – Anora, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, The Seed of the Sacred Fig… The year before, it was The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall… Cannes seems instrumental in setting the cultural agenda. Do you still feel this pressure every year going into Cannes with a new selection of films?

TF: Don’t give me too many compliments because we are in March and it’s exactly the same for me, for us, with my colleagues of the selection committee. Are we going to do better than last year? So last year, one year ago, we were very worried because 2023 was a very good year too. So, we’ll see. We’ll see. We are working, and it’s also about that – as we are talking, as we are working and watching films, we know that a lot of filmmakers are editing, finishing writing, working for the future… And when talking about the future of cinema, what is very good to know, to feel, is that cinema is protected and will be saved by movies themselves. By artists. And when we have films, we have audiences. This is also the project of Lumière.

You mention the protection of cinema, but when someone like Trump puts together a cabal of “ambassadors” to “bring Hollywood back” because he sees Hollywood as having lost business to foreign countries, this not only harks back to historical American protectionism but teeters on perverting cinema as propaganda. How can Europe protect cinema from this, as well as put it on the pedestal it deserves?

TF: Well, it’s not easy. I think we have to teach the young generation to be on our side, to protect cinema. Cinema is an industry, yes, but cinema is above all an art. Cinema is poetry. Cinema is the possibility for someone who wants to tell the world some important things.

Remember, the list of artists who wanted to destroy the world is a small one. I’m not sure we have even five names on that list. Conversely, filmmakers, like novelists, are working. They’re doing their jobs of saying and sharing the beauty of the world. This is something we still need, and we won’t have it via social media. We will have it through literature, music, rock concerts… And cinema.

When it comes to preserving and championing this beauty, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Juliette Binoche last year. She will be this year’s Cannes Jury President, and she shared that one of her goals is to rehumanize society through cinema. What is your goal?

TF: I have the same goal. I think that she is totally right. She knows exactly how artists like her can touch people. And this gives you a big responsibility. Juliette is among those artists who has conscience of their duty. Of course, she’s also a great artist, able to do a comedy or drama. She can do everything. And this is an impressive body of work which, at the end of the journey, we’ll be able to say that we lived alongside people like her.

Finally, do you remember the first film that sparked your passion for cinema?

TF: I remember that moment very precisely! It was Snow White. But I don’t remember the movie itself, because we were late to the screening. So we entered in the movie theatre in the dark. And that impressed me a lot. There was something about that moment which stuck with me, and that’s why I’m still a big lover of movie theatres.

Lumière, l’aventure continue! is out in cinemas on 19 March. The Insitut Lumière celebrates 130 years of cinema all year long. Thierry Frémaux’s 2024 book “Rue du Premier-Film” is in bookstores.

Check out the video at the top of the article for extracts of the conversation with Thierry Frémaux, an interview facilitated and produced by Frédéric Ponsard.

Source link