A glimpse into the history of French cinema

The world's first screening of a motion picture to a paying audience took place at the Grand Cafe in Paris on 28 December 1895; it was a programme of short films by Louis Lumiere, who with his brother Auguste ran a photography firm in Lyon. Ever since that date, cinema has occupied a central place in the culture of France, a place the French state, as we shall see, has always been concerned to protect and promote. The Paris Cinematheque, founded by Henri Langlois and Georges Franju in 1936, has remained since then the world's best-known cinematic archive, and there is no city in which it is possible to see a greater range and variety of films than Paris. The cinematic involvement of leading figures from the worlds of literature and theatre, from Sacha Guitry to Marguerite Duras, is another indication of how important a place in French culture cinema holds.