At the heart of a battle for 5 years, the independent Parisian cinema La Clef has been saved from closure and Quentin Tarantino has nothing to do with it!
While many cinemas are closing in Paris, like the legendary UGS Normandie on the Champs-Elysées, the independent cinema La Clef has just been saved from closure. After a bitter five-year battle, the cinema located in the fifth arrondissement of the Capital has just been saved thanks in particular to Quentin Tarantino. Although he still does not know what his tenth and final film will be, the American filmmaker continues to ardently defend the preservation of cinemas.
The endowment fund Revival Cinemabought the cinema building, which had been put up for sale by its former owner the Caisse d’Epargne banking group, with 2 million euros raised through an online fundraising campaign.
Donations from David Lynch, Céline Sciamma and Agnès Jaoui
400,000 euros were raised thanks to 5,000 individual donations from filmmakers and actors such as David Lynch, Wang Bing, Leos Carax, Céline Sciamma, Sophie Fillières, Agnès Jaoui and Irène Jacob. The rest of the money was raised thanks to several “significant” donations from the director Quentin Tarantinoand two other patrons wishing to remain anonymous as specified on the site Deadline.
American media specifies that Quentin Tarantino’s generous donation is the result of an impromptu meeting with two members of the La Clef collective during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. A great movie buff, the director of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill was present to promote his book “Cinema Speculation and the presentation of Rolling Thunder by John Flynn.
‘You have an email’… by Quentin Tarantino!
The collective told Deadline: “He was very interested in the project and sent us a mysterious email saying: “How much do you need to buy the cinema?” The subject line of the email was: “This is Quentin Tarantino.” He asked us for the amount we needed and covered it in full. This allowed us to complete the financing.”
A fervent defender of cinemas, Quentin Tarantino owns two cinemas in Los Angeles and therefore allowed the La Clef cinema to be resurrected.
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Quentin Tarantino
Reopening for 4 days before a year of work
The cinema will open for four days, from June 27 to 30, before closing for a year to renovate the decades-old building. The group plans to install a bar there as well as three film post-production rooms which will be operated for profit to support the cinema’s activities. The Cinema Revival fund will employ two full-time people to manage the theater rental activity, while cinema programming will continue to be provided by volunteers.
For its part, the cinema has just published a press release entitled: “We did it. The Key is savede” in which the group writes: “It took almost five years to fight. Five years of reflections, meetings, negotiations, bottles in the sea, crazy ideas, disappointments and wonderful surprises. (…) Occupying and then purchasing La Clef required immense, coordinated effort and perseverance – and this was only possible because dozens of people worked together, trained each other. the others and took turns.
Thank you again a thousand times!
Without this, we would not have carried out such a project, which required learning everything (…) It was exhilarating but it was difficult, and if we never gave up, it’s also thanks to the constant support of the public, volunteers who came to lend a helping hand, donors, friends and professionals. Thanks to the activists who inspired us, to the people who advised us. It’s thanks to all of you: thank you again a thousand times!”
The cinema will reopen its doors on June 27 with the screening of Cléo de 5 à 7 by Agnès Varda. This New Wave classic was the film scheduled in 2018 when bailiffs entered the cinema to shut down its activities. The screening will be presented by Agnès’ daughter, Rosalie Varda.
As Tarantino would say: “Long live cinema!”
