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We are delighted to present two feature-length films – LUMIÈRE! THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (2016) and its sequel, LUMIÈRE! THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES (2025). Conceived and directed by Thierry Frémaux, both are based on the cinematographic films shot by Louis Lumière and his operators from 1895–1905.
Exactly 130 years after Lumière first hand-cranked the camera, this material has been collated and immaculately restored, allowing the original cinematographic ‘views’ to reveal their full significance on the big screen while offering a deeper exploration of the invention of cinema.
We extend our thanks to Goodfellas, Wild Bunch, The Festival Agency, the British Film Institute; and to Maelle Arnaud and Thierry Frémaux (Director at the Institut Lumière in Lyon and General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festival).
Notes by Marie-Pierre Richard
LUMIÈRE! THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (LUMIÈRE ! L’AVENTURE COMMENCE)
Saturday 22nd (15:40)
Director: Thierry Frémaux
90 mins / France / 2016 / Digital / Subtitled / Black & White
Louis Lumière, with the help of his brother Auguste invented and perfected the Cinématographe, finding form and a poetic language through composition, tracking shots, comedy, drama, and actors. Frémaux brilliantly assembles these restored, fifty-second Lumière films, guiding us with enlightened commentary. Punctuated by the music of Camille Saint-Saëns, a contemporary of Lumière and the first musician to compose an original score for cinema, it is profoundly moving to see these treasures of film history return to the big screen after more than a century of absence.
The screening will be introduced by Dr. Tony Tracy, Head of Huston School of Film & Digital Media, University of Galway.
Tickets on sale here.
LUMIÈRE! THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES (LUMIÈRE ! L’AVENTURE CONTINUE)
Saturday 29th (15:30)
104 mins / France / 2025 / Digital / Subtitled / Black & White
With commentary by Frémaux and music by Gabriel Fauré, we celebrate Louis Lumière, cinema’s first true filmmaker, who shaped its language and created a vision of the world that cannot be separated from its mode of representation. This feature-length film is composed of 120 fifty-second films shot between 1895–1905 by Lumière and his operators, revealing, with hypnotic beauty and breathtaking details, a vivid spectacle of the turn of the century world. About ten of these were filmed in 75mm, but were never seen as they couldn’t be projected. But now, digitally restored, we see them for the first time.
A selection of short films, made in Dublin in 1897 by Alexander Promio, an agent of the Lumière Brother, will screen before each film. They are among the oldest moving images made in Ireland and 35mm film copies are preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive.