First French Movie📷

At first, the Lumières had no idea what to do with their creation, but they caused a sensation when their first film, La Sortie de l’usine Lumière à Lyon, was presented at a meeting of the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale in Paris on 22nd March 1895.

France can, with some justification, claim to have invented the whole concept of cinema. Film historians call The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, the 50-second film by the Lumière brothers first screened in 1895, the birth of the medium.

In reality, French cinema today is no more regularly innovative than any other national cinema. … France’s greatest screen stars show an astonishing durability. The biggest names in French cinema are versatile in a way that their Hollywood counterparts rarely equal.

France had more than 5.9 thousand screens in 2017, the highest number among all the countries in Europe. Even though France has an important cinema industry and produces a large amount of films every year, it seems that the public prefer American movies.

French cinema used to be known for its auteurs. This reputation survives, but French film-makers have now introduced modern trends and up to date techniques within the French tradition. Their films provide foreign distributors with an alternative to US titles. “France has always been the cradle of cinema…”