La Cinémathèque Française

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.

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

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.

This French documentary pays homage to a young man whose passion left a rich and valuable legacy to the world of cinema. Henri Langlois was one of the co-founders of the Cinematheque Francaise, a museum which contains many rare artifacts from early cinema as well as one of the most extensive film archives in the world. This documentary will be most meaningful for those already familiar with Langlois' story. Through old film clips and interviews, Langlois is seen as an eccentric but charismatic young visionary obsessed with preserving and locating old films. Filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky uses scenes from Citizen Kane to compare the portly iconoclast to Charles Foster Kane, in that both Langlois and Welle's fictional newspaper magnate where avid collectors, and both were men of mystery.

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.

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.

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.

Life and work of the founder of the Cinémathèque Française.

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.

Edited from 4½ hours of unused material left over from the shooting of Jean Renoir's 1936 PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE (A Day in the Country) and donated by the producer Pierre Braunberger to the Cinémathèque Française. Re-edited for a new version, much of the film is shot with synchronised sound with Renoir's voice instructing and guiding the actors.

Documentary about filmmaker Jean Grémillon.

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.