La Cinémathèque française was established in the mid-1930s by founder Henri Langlois, who quickly amassed thousands of films that were hidden and protected during the occupation of World War II. Reassembling the scattered film collection in the postwar years, the Cinémathèque established a stable location and began its daily presentations of rare films from throughout the world and the entire history of cinema. These presentations are universally cited as the chief catalyst of the French New Wave of the 1950s.
Today, the Cinémathèque holds one of the largest (if not the largest) film collections in Europe.
Listing updated: 20 July 2014. |