Lumière et compagnie (Lumière and company)

The idea for this film was originated by Philippe Poulet, who works at the Musée du Cinéma in Lyon and has restored an old camera owned by the Lumière brothers. His suggestion was to ask contemporary filmmakers to use this antique apparatus to make their own 'Lumière' film. This meant working according to the same conditions which prevailed at the time the Lumières made their films one hundred years ago, i.e. the sequence should be no longer than 52 seconds, should be silent and should not use artificial lighting. Forty filmmakers agreed to work, unpaid, on their own version of a LumiŐre film. This resulted in forty short films of varying approaches and styles.