130 years
Lumière for Everyone!
PostED ON 13.10.2025
We celebrate cinema, on its 130th anniversary — and along with it, a treasure from its origins: the films of the Lumière brothers, its inventors. Nothing is more modern than the gaze of children peering at an unfamiliar device: the camera. Nothing is more vivid than all the people moving spontaneously across the world. It is worth remembering that the Lumière brothers gave birth to an entirely new and complete art form on Rue du Premier-Film (First-Film Street), which has been renovated this year and restored to its former glory. It all took place in Lyon... Let us hear what the people of Lyon have to say 130 years later, as they admire the photograms (still shots) from the Lumière brothers' films, on display at the Photo Gallery of the Institut!
Lumière Film n°237 - Schlossplatz (Stuttgart)
© Collection Institut Lumière
‘I know the Lumière films!’
...declares primary school student Gaston, age 9, while looking at the ‘photograms’ (still images) from the black and white films, which he finds ‘super clean’. He has seen Lumière films both at home and at school. ‘I like The Arrival of a Train at Le Ciotat a lot, with the train arriving from the side, and The Sprinkler Sprinkled makes me laugh’.
What strikes visitors most are the attitudes of people 130 years ago! 22-year-old student, Mathieu, noticed the impressive presence of ‘people who work and enjoy themselves’. ‘These images reveal a French society similar to today's’, comments Rafael, a 22-year-old Brazilian student.
‘It touches me. People are beautiful regardless of their social status. And then there's a certain something that engages with the camera, saying: “I'm here!” explains Natacha, a 53-year-old electrician. Indeed, it is an entire global population that is revealed intact, from the elegant female workers leaving the Lumière factories, to the Indochinese opium smokers, to the close-up of the rowers in a whaling boat.
‘I'm fascinated by these scenes of everyday life in different parts of the world. It's interesting to see life unfolding spontaneously,’ says Mathieu, adding: ‘They went on trips to the Alps just like we do today, but using different techniques.’
‘We forget that travelling used to be an adventure. Their open outlook on the world is amazing. It brings the people of the last century closer to us’, remarks Béatrice, 54.
‘You can tell that people aren’t used to being filmed. Their gazes at the camera reveal their curiosity about the world of cinema. The presence of this camera, a completely novel device, conveys a great calm, a calm that children today can relearn,’ comments Florence, a 44-year-old schoolteacher.
For Liv, a 46-year-old business manager: ‘People in front of the camera stop, as if they’re wondering what’s happening. They seem to be saying to the cameraman: “What are you doing?”. The surprise is very evident in front of the camera’.
‘This is truly documentary work. We have respect for all these images. It's thanks to the Lumière brothers and their operators that we have our iPhones today!’ concludes Bernard, a retired former meteorologist who closely observes every detail of the spontaneous life that emerges from the photograms.
— Reported by Virginie Apiou
The time of innocence
This beautiful book of almost 500 pages could have been titled ‘Impression of a New World’, drawing several parallels to Claude Monet's magnificent painting Impression, Sunrise. It was indeed the whole animated world that the Lumière brothers revealed to the public for the first time, like the sun rising and suddenly illuminating everything. These are ‘2,000 vues shot between 1895 and 1905 by Louis and Auguste Lumière and the dozens of operators they recruited and trained’ notes Thierry Frémaux in a foreword that puts everything into context. ‘It's like cleansing your own eyes of everything that has fed, nourished and sometimes damaged them; it's like returning to the source and the original intention, in this newly invented language with a set duration of fifty seconds’.
Dedicated ‘To all the visitors to Rue du Premier-Film’ and ‘in memory of Jean-Luc Godard’, this book shares snapshots created from photograms of the Lumière films. ‘A single frame, carefully chosen from among 16, flashes by in each of the fifty seconds that a “Lumière film” lasts’. We fully experience ‘the haziness of the image’, the movement captured in mid-flight, accompanied by historical explanatory texts, chapter headings and white quotations printed on a stark black background. ‘The people one sees in the Lumière films are not our ancestors, they are not our grandparents or our forefathers. They are us,’ concludes Agnès Varda. ‘The world of Lumière is infinite.’
> Release on 5 November, Institut Lumière / Actes Sud
> Available for pre-sale during the festival
UPCOMING
> In 2026, the expanded catalogue of La Production cinématographique des frères Lumière, published by Institut Lumière Actes Sud.
> The publication by Actes Sud of Bernard Chardère's writings on the Lumière brothers.
> The launch of a free platform, accessible to all, entirely dedicated to Lumière films, containing documentation on the films.
> And release of the DVD Lumière, l’aventure continue, a documentary by Thierry Frémaux.
The Lumière event at the Grand Rex!
A screening and performance will celebrate the invention of the movie theatre, which took place on 28 December 1895. Thierry Frémaux will provide commentary on a selection of Lumière films, which have been beautifully restored to their original glory. The show will be accompanied by music by pianist Didier Martel, showcasing the modernity of the Lumière brothers' cinema. These extraordinary yet little-known films will be screened for one exceptional evening on the huge screen at the Grand Rex.
> Friday, 12 December at 8 pm at the Grand Rex
1, Bd Poissonnière, Paris 2nd arrondissement
DISCOVER
Lumière and compagnie by Sarah Moon (Lumière et compagnie, 1995, 1h32)
Restoration: 4K restoration by Cinétévé.
Our thanks to distributor Cinétévé
> Institut Lumière (Villa) Mon13 7pm | Institut Lumière (Villa) Mon13 7.15pm |
In the presence of Fabienne Servan-Schreiber (Cinétévé)
In the presence of Fabienne Servan-Schreiber (Cinétévé)
EXHIBITION
PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION
« The Lumière Adventure – People and Landscapes Seen in the Lumière Films »
Until 4 January 2026, at the Photo Gallery of the Institut Lumière, Lyon 8th
