Gaëtan Bruel,
President of the CNC, talks about heritage cinema 
 

PostED ON 17.10.2025

© CNC / Mehrak Habibi

What does being a guest of honour at the Lumière film festival mean to you? 

It’s obviously in recognition for the role that the CNC plays in preserving and sharing heritage cinema. This honour is also a personal joy. When you love cinema, it’s impossible to be satisfied with just Wednesday releases. (All new films are released on Wednesdays in France – editor’s note). It would be like limiting yourself to recent literary works and not allowing yourself to read Balzac, Yourcenar or a thousand other authors considered ‘classics’! In any case, it’s my way of loving cinema, appreciating this eternal continuity between the Lumière brothers and Agnès Varda, Georges Méliès and Michel Gondry, Alice Guy and Mati Diop...

Why is it important to work on preserving and promoting heritage cinema? 

Because we need to restore this continuity and fight against the absurd and dangerous planned obsolescence that would have us believe that a film is no longer valuable past its theatrical release. What’s at stake is not just the cinema of yesteryear, but cinema itself. It is said to be as much an art as an industry, but the reality is that the latter too often – and increasingly – takes precedence over its artistic dimension. With these heritage films, cinema reminds us that for 130 years it has remained one of the most complex and powerful of arts, but also one of the most fragile if we don’t take care of it.

What does heritage cinema tell us about today? 

That we have a tendency to forget what came before us. Yet this heritage is an integral part of our identity. It is also, above all, what gives cinema its true depth, because this diversity must be appreciated in terms of space (by looking beyond our own cinematic borders) as well as time (by looking beyond the films of the present). A taste for this cinematic diversity must be awakened and cultivated. This is the challenge of image education. And the role of the Lumière film festival.

How does the CNC participate in the realm of heritage cinema? 

In several ways. First, by supporting the restoration of works, such as Henri Calef's magnificent Shadow and Light (Ombre et Lumière), which is being screened at the festival this year. Secondly, by promoting their digitisation and distribution, whether it involves cinemas, videos or VOD platforms, with specific funding for each category. For this 2025 edition, the CNC has supported nearly 70 films being screened. Finally, the CNC supports all cultural institutions dedicated to heritage cinema, such as the Institut Lumière.

If you had one heritage film (screened at this year's festival) to share with others, which one would it be and why? 

I recently watched Julien Duvivier's The End of the Day (La Fin du jour, 1939), which is one of the 70 films sponsored by the CNC. It’s a deeply moving film, a tribute to the theatre by a great filmmaker, with Louis Jouvet almost playing himself, an ageing actor who enters a hospice for former stars, condemned to reminisce about their memories, far from the stage. It’s a film that may seem harsh at first glance, but it is actually imbued with great emotion.