2019 marks the 10th edition of festival Lumière, organized by Institut Lumière in collaboration with the city of Lyon and the Auvergne-Rhôn-Alpes. The festival takes place in the city of Lyon, the birthplace of the Lumière Cinematograph. Last year’s edition saw more than 180,000 attendees. As the festival continues to flourish, the anniversary is an opportunity to look back at the past ten years and continue to celebrate the memory of films, movie theaters and audiences.
This year’s edition is rich in events. Particularly remarkable is this year’s line-up when it comes to masterclasses with names like Frances McDormand, Daniel Auteuil, Marco Bellocchio, Marina Vlady and Bong Joon-ho. This year’s Lumière Award recipient, described by the festival as the “Nobel Prize of Cinema”, is Francis Ford Coppola. For its anniversary, the Lumière Festival has created a new section called Lumière Classics that presents a selection of the finest restored films of the year.
Among the new restorations screened by the festival we find The Broken Butterfly by Maurice Tourneur (1919), The First Year by Frank Borzage (1926) and The Love of Jeanne Ney by Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1927). In the section Lumière Classics it is possible to rediscover French movies such as Toni by Jean Renoir (1935), Bizarre, Bizarre by Marcel Carné (1937) and Woman of Evil by Edmond T. Gréville (1947), in addition to other countries’ gems like Zone Grise by Fredi M. Murer (1979) from Switzerland and As Asmas e o povo by the Workers’ Collective of the Cinema Sector (1975) from Portugal.
Particularly important is the festival’s valorisation of Polish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian and Hungarian restorations. The Hungarian National Film Fund – Film Archive is presenting The Two of Them by Márta Mészáros (1977 – the Friday 18th screening will be introduced by Marina Vlady) and The Fifth Seal by Zoltán Fábri (1976). The National Film Archive – Audivisual Institute of Warsaw is presenting A Woman’s Decision by Krzysztof Zanussi (1975), the Slovak Film Institute Field Lillies by Elo Havetta (1972).
The festival will also screen the world premiere of the restoration of The Wheel by Abel Gance in two parts with accompaniment by the National Orchestra of Lyon, conducted by Franck Strobel, in the beautiful setting of the Auditorium of Lyon. This restoration was made possible by the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation from material conserved by the Cinémathèque française and the Cinémathèque Suisse with the support of the CNC.
To find out more on Festival Lumière, visit the official website: http://www.festival-lumiere.org/