Does the Halle Tony-Garnier in Lyon have some supernatural powers? Does the audience of the Lumière Festival send particular energies to cinema artists? We could believe it, as there is something unique happening in this festival like no other, which is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year. In 2023, the opening ceremony vibrated in front of a very lively Fabrice Luchini.
Last month in The Pointon the occasion of the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuicehis first film after six years without filming, American filmmaker Tim Burton spoke of his coming to the festival in 2022: “ The reception from the public there overwhelmed me. I cried about it. In Lyon, I experienced something that I had never experienced in my entire life. It was beautiful, frightening, shocking and inspiring all at once. It really helped me reconnect with the love of my job that I had lost.. »
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Neither palmares nor the red carpet.
The success of this festival organized by the Lumière Institute, directed by Thierry Frémaux, in fact defies all those who predicted the decline of cinemas in favor of platforms such as Netflix. Would the public squat on their sofas, ignore old films, wait for glitter, demand competitions? We must believe not: last year, nearly 166,000 spectators (129,000 tickets issued and 37,000 at meetings, exhibitions, etc.) flocked to the Cité des Gones for this film festival which presents neither prize lists nor red carpet and focuses on the beautiful balance of its vast programming, both classic and modern: “Every time we try to change the formula, we come back to this one because it works so well, notes Maelle Arnaud, the programming director. It is a public and popular success because, if we have an audience of film buffs all year round, we can clearly see that at the time of the festival the celebration is much broader and collective: the Lyonnais, but also an audience which comes from all of France, have taken ownership of the event and, suddenly, the idea of cinema history is no longer reserved only for “those who know”: it is a festival for everyone.»
At Lumière, everyone makes their own program from a clever mix of heritage films, presented by passionate film critics and artists, and ambitious retrospectives. We explore cinematographies from all over the world and attend meetings with filmmakers who are finally relaxed: outside the circuit of promoting a film, they come to talk about cinema without pressure. “All the guests of honor are delighted to come because we don’t often ask them to come and talk about cinema in the broad sense, continues Maelle Arnaud. Vanessa Paradis, for example, told me that she couldn’t wait to do the first master class of her career on her work as an actress… Not only did she accept, but she was very interested in the spirit of the festival and also wants to go listen to the other presentations. »
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The actress will give her conference today (11 a.m.) and will present her films, just like Vincent Lindon, Benicio Del Toro, Xavier Dolan, Costa-Gavras… Filmmakers like Claude Lelouch, Jacques Audiard and François Ozon will also be there. part, Justine Triet will give a master class around her own cinephilia, talking about the films that have left their mark on her. “We want to be the festival of all cinemas, insists Maelle Arnaud. This year, our major retrospective is devoted to Fred Zinnemann, whose films are completely mainstream (As long as there are men, The train will whistle three times…) but whose name is not: it’s a challenge for us to make it one of the hits of the festival and it’s a crazy success: we’re snapping up tickets . »
The festival will also showcase the work of Spanish filmmaker Icíar Bollaín and her engaged and constructive cinema. We will dive again during a “Jodorowsky night” in the delirious universe of the Franco-Chilean filmmaker, we will discover some previews, we will celebrate the 30th anniversary ofQueen Margotin the presence of Jean-Hugues Anglade and we will (re)see the films of Delon, Huppert, Paradis, Hazanavicius and other essential classics… Finally, the famous Lumière prize, a sort of “Nobel prize fordumb» for lifetime achievement, will this year be awarded to Isabelle Huppert. “Her career has spanned all continents, she has worked with French, Korean, American and Hungarian directors, with big names in cinema as well as first films, she ranges from drama to comedy... concludes Maelle Arnaud. She seems to embody the absolute actress. » Enough to make us run into dark rooms.
Until Sunday October 20.
