La Cinémathèque Française

Eric Rohmer leads a conversation with Jean Renoir and Henri Langlois on the art of filmmaker Louis Lumière.

In 1912-1913, movie pioneer Gaston Méliès, brother of Georges Méliès, did a ten month long trip around Asia-Pacific, shooting both documentaries and fictions on location in Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia, Java, Singapore, Cambodia and Japan. He wanted the “real” thing” he filmed, with the locals, being one of the first to give Polynesians, Maoris, Aborigines and Khmers a chance to appear on screen. His hybrid cinema dealt with questions of alterity, identity and representation.

Thirteen filmmakers share personal reflections on Henri Langlois—the visionary founder of the Cinémathèque Française—recounting his influence on their lives, his role in preserving film history, and his enduring impact on world cinema.

One hundred and twenty years of film history in a warehouse in Paris. In the reserves of the French Cinematheque, where thousands of cameras and projectors are sleeping on the shelves. Thousands of stationary machinery, we dream of getting back to work as a great machine back in time. To tell their story, the material history of cinema.

A red-haired boy is his mother's punching bag; only his father's presence is a great comfort to him, but this weak man is under the shrew's thumb. His pain is so great he feels suicidal.

The incredible adventure of what was supposed to be a three-month inventory project turned into a vast undertaking lasting more than fourteen years, an extraordinary reconstruction and restoration with unexpected twists and turns of one of the masterpieces of world cinema: Napoleon as seen by Abel Gance (1927).

An interview with filmmaker Wim Wenders on the occasion of the retrospective dedicated to him in 2018 at the Cinémathèque Française. One of the leading figures of New German Cinema looked back on his career, from Paris, Texas (1984) to the documentary Pina (2011), via Wings of Desire (1987). In six chapters: Early films, New German Cinema, Places and screenplays, The death of cinema, The future of cinema, Questions from the audience.

A little girl with beautiful hair. She loves movies and wants to become an actress. She is being told about the plot of a movie that she is going to play: "A friend is jealous about her hair and cuts it when she is asleep." The girl rejects playing the role. Then she is then told that she can play the jealous girl but she again rejects the role.

Life and work of the founder of the Cinémathèque Française.

La Cinémathèque offered the filmmaker Marcel Hanoun to make a retrospective of his work, a new film, the one of his choice: a "free" film, which means free to the filmmaker of to see and hear what he wants, who he wants, and, ideally, to make it known and heard by everyone.

Documentary on the beginnings of Algerian independence filmed during the summer of 1962 in Algiers. The film was banned in France and Algeria but won the Grand Prize at the Leipzig International Film Festival in 1965. Out of friendship, the production company Images de France sent an operator, Bruno Muel, who later declared: "For those who were called to Algeria (for me, 1956-58), participating in a film on independence was a victory over horror, lies and absurdity. It was also the beginning of my commitment to the cinema."

Truffaut au présent is a film divided in three shorts; throughout "Acteurs", "Actrices" and "Couples" we explore François Truffaut's legacy and influence on contemporary French cinema.

Six films by photographer Paul Nadar in 1896 were combined into a program in 1970 by the Cinemathèque Francaise. It contains four dance routines and two Paris-based actualities.