Lumiere Film Festival Kicks Off With Jam-Packed Opening Screening of ‘The Innocent’ to Celebrate Cinematic Experience
variety.comIs there a better way to prove the virtue of the cinematic experience than to get 5,000 people on their feet giving a film a standing ovation?
Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Fremaux did just that on the opening night of his 14th Lumière Film Festival in Lyon with Louis Garrel’s romantic comedy “The Innocent.” The movie played in the jam-packed Halle Tony Garnier before a star-studded crowd, including Garrel and his cast, Noémie Merlant and Roschdy Zem, as well as Sebastián Lelio, Costa Gavras, Leila Bekhti, Marina Fois, Lee Chang-dong, Nicole Garcia, Sabine Azema and Damien Bonnard.
Industry players also turned up, notably MK2 Films’ co-CEOs Nathanael and Elisha Karmitz, Series Mania’s director Laurence Herszberg, Ad Vitam co-founder Alexandra Henochsberg, the Annecy Film Festival head Mickaël Marin, and “The Innocent” producer, Anne-Dominique Toussaint.
The opening night event was held in the city’s historic 5,000-seat Tony Garnier concert venue which Frémaux called “the biggest cinema theatre in the world.” “The Innocent,” which shot entirely in Lyon – the birthplace of the Cinematograph and their creators, the Lumière brothers – had also played on the 75th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival in May. “When we started the Lumière Festival [in 2009], the idea was to show classic cinema on the silver screen, to educate via the big screen, by getting people to come and see films they had discovered on TV or on DVDs,” said Fremaux. “Today, it’s not just about screening classics, but about screening cinema as a whole,” continued the artistic director, who is also welcoming at the festival Tim Burton, who will receive the Prix Lumière, its prestigious honorary award; James Gray, who is presenting “Armageddon
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