Celebrating 125 years since the first commercial screening experience.
Today, theaters struggle to survive, but Cinebur is optimistic about the future of cinema.
This article was originally published on Lumen, the official blog by Cinebur.
When people ask us what we think of cinema, we rarely talk about the movie theaters, or even the movies themselves — and God forbid we ever mention streaming! No, when we think of cinema, we think of people. History is filled with visionaries and “monomaniacs” who wanted to stretch people’s imagination through transformative public experiences.
Today, we celebrate those visionaries who brought dreams to life: the Lumière brothers are the founders of cinema, which Cinebur maintains is a communal experience revolving around movies. That’s what we think of cinema, and that’s why we believe it will never go away, even if it’s feeling a little under the weather lately… Here’s a cinema-history crash course along with why we’re still optimistic about the future of cinema.
The first commercial film screening was held at the Salon Indien at the Grand Café, Paris. Read more below.
1895 was the year cinema was born. On March 22, the Lumière brothers unveiled the first glimpse of the moving image to the public with their camera-projector, the Cinématographe. The screening was public and showcased workers leaving the Lumière factory, which you can watch below:
Exciting stuff, right? Well, on December 28th 1895, this day 125 years ago, the Lumière brothers went a step further. In the basement of a little cafe in Paris, they hosted the first ever paid film screening for the public that housed no more than a dozen people. In other words, the first cinema screening was… a Cinebur! Think about it: the live spectacle, the intimate audience size, the indie films (which the Lumière brothers produced themselves), the unique cafe location — that’s Cinebur!
They played a series of short films that altogether spanned no more than 20 minutes. The audience was stunned. Never before had people experienced something so magical, so surreal — and the audience only had each other’s company to confirm that what they witnessed was in fact real. This sense of communal bonding can’t be replicated without a physical experience; but today, movie theaters are some of the most endangered businesses that have suffered due to COVID-19, and the onset of streaming has threatened their livelihood beyond the pandemic.
So what does this mean for the future of cinema? There is no doubt that the entertainment industry has been hanging on the thread of streaming, but without the theatrical release model, indie films face greater consequences due to their dependence on word-of-mouth to grow their box office revenue and reap their long-term returns beyond opening weekend. Does this mean there could be less indie films in the future? Potentially, yes. Despite indie companies and streaming platforms like Netflix continuing to produce films that target niche audiences, global phenomenons like Parasite, Moonlight and other groundbreaking indie films may get lost in the pool of content that cannot distinguish themselves without a theatrical release.
Furthermore, the social implications of a world without cinema means we lose the communal aspect of movie-watching. As you may have heard us say countless times, watching movies is fundamentally different form going to the movies. The latter is what offers the magic of the movies, just like the Lumière brothers first showed us in 1895.
“There’s nothing like going to a big dark theater with people you’ve never met before, and having the experience wash over you.”
- Steven Spielberg
We can’t say whether movie theaters will be “around forever” — we should try to support them — but we can be sure that the moviegoing experience is vital for social cohesion. Theaters play a pivotal role in creating more great indie films, but cinema is necessary to ensure people can continue to share transformative communal experiences. We’ll be the first to say the pandemic hasn’t made it easy for us, but Cinebur is committed to promoting indie films while saving cinema. If the Lumière brothers showed us anything, it’s that a small cafe with a live audience and projector are enough to make cinema the magical experience we know it to be. And we are determined to keep it alive.
So, Happy Birthday, cinema. We’ll do our best to keep you going forever. It’s for our own sake.
Stay safe,
Doddi El-gabry
Co-founder & CEO at Cinebur
Let us know how you think the future of cinema will look like in the comments below.
If you want to learn more about Cinebur, and how it’s trying to save cinema, check it out below:
