2022’s Lumière Pageant Opens With Louis Garrel’s ‘The Harmless’

Is there a greater method to show the advantage of the cinematic expertise than to get 5,000 individuals on their ft giving a movie a standing ovation? 

Cannes Movie Pageant chief Thierry Fremaux did simply that on the opening evening of his 14th Lumière Movie Pageant in Lyon with Louis Garrel’s romantic comedy “The Harmless.” 

The film performed within the jam-packed Halle Tony Garnier earlier than a star-studded crowd, together with Garrel and his forged, Noémie Merlant and Roschdy Zem, in addition to Sebastián Lelio, Costa Gavras, Leila Bekhti, Marina Fois, Lee Chang-dong, Nicole Garcia, Sabine Azema and Damien Bonnard. 

Trade gamers additionally turned up, notably MK2 Movies’ co-CEOs Nathanael and Elisha Karmitz, Collection Mania’s director Laurence Herszberg, Advert Vitam co-founder Alexandra Henochsberg, the Annecy Movie Pageant head Mickaël Marin, and “The Harmless’s” producer, Anne-Dominique Toussaint. The opening evening occasion was held within the metropolis’s historic 5,000-seat Tony Garnier live performance venue which Frémaux known as “the most important cinema theatre on the planet.”

“The Harmless,” which shot completely in Lyon – the birthplace of the Cinematograph and their creators, the Lumière brothers – had additionally performed on the seventy fifth anniversary of the Cannes Movie Pageant in Could. 

“After we began the Lumière Pageant [in 2009], the thought was to indicate traditional cinema on the silver display, to teach by way of the massive display, by getting individuals to return and see movies that they had found on TV or on DVDs,” mentioned Fremaux. 

“At present, it’s not nearly screening classics, however about screening cinema as an entire,” continued the creative director, who can be welcoming on the pageant Tim Burton, who will obtain the Prix Lumière, its prestigious honorary award; James Grey, who’s presenting “Armageddon Time” and collaborating in a masterclass; in addition to Guillermo del Toro with “Pinocchio” and Alejandro González Iñárritu with “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.” The latter two are Netflix movies. The lineup additionally showcase the worldwide premiere of Steven Spielberg’s newest film “The Fabelmans.” The Common title had a banner bow at September’s Toronto Pageant. 

Whereas theatrical admissions in France are 30% down on 2021, the Lumière Movie Pageant, which celebrates classics and choose up to date movies, bought almost 90,000 tickets for this version. The pageant will host roughly 200 screenings over the course of 9 days.

Particular occasions this yr will embrace cine-concerts of Wilhelm Murnau’s traditional “Nosferatu” on the Lyon Opera Home to mark the movie’s centenary, and a world premiere of the restored copy of French silent movie “Within the Evening” by Charles Vanel. 

“It’s an opportunity to find a long-lost masterpiece,” mentioned Fremaux, whose Lumière Institute, an org devoted to the preservation of heritage cinema, is giving the movie a second life. 

“Lumière Classics is a label that has made a reputation for itself,” he instructed the gang. “Belief us to go and uncover movies that you simply don’t know,” he added, referring to the fest’s sidebar “Trésors et Curiosités,” a curated collection of cinematic gems. 

The pageant president Irene Jacob concluded, wrapping the opening ceremony, saying that “Expertise modifications, information modifications, however the human spirit, the will for cinema, doesn’t.”

“This can be a sustainable pageant, with non-disposable movies, which signifies that, right here, movies are protected, restored and shared, and the authors are remembered, cherished and celebrated,” Jacob continued. 

Earlier Lumière Prize honorees embrace Jane Campion, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Fonda, Wong Kar Wai, Catherine Deneuve, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodovar, Quentin Tarantino, Ken Loach, Gérard Depardieu, Milos Forman and Clint Eastwood. 

The Lumière Movie Pageant runs in Lyon over Oct. 15-23.