Lumiere and company

These are the rules: No post editing; no synchronous sound; no more than three takes. The facts: only 52 seconds of film using an original restored 35mm Lumiere camera. 40 filmmakers from around the world partake in one of the most fascinating and enlightening cinematic experiments in film history, to commemorate the centennial of the Lumiere Brothers’ first motion picture. “From slapstick comedy to political propaganda, documentary realism to costume drama, the world is fleetingly captured once again. But the lens of the contemporary beholders has seen a century the Lumiere brothers could scarcely have imagined. Watching the directors it is hard to decide which side of the camera provides the greater entertainment! Who cranks the handle themselves or who insists on a full technical crew; who conquers, or cracks under the constraints is fascinating and just as illuminating as the succinct sensations they create.” - Amree Hewitt. 45th Melbourne International Film Festival, 1996.
Directed by:
Theodoros Angelopoulos (as Theo Angelopoulos)
Vicente Aranda
John Boorman
Youssef Chahine
Alain Corneau
Costa-Gavras
Raymond Depardon
Francis Girod
Peter Greenaway
Lasse Hallström
Hugh Hudson
Gaston Kaboré
Abbas Kiarostami
Cédric Klapisch
Andrey Konchalovskiy (as Andrei Konchalovsky)
Spike Lee
Claude Lelouch
Bigas Luna
Sarah Moon
Arthur Penn
Lucian Pintilie
Helma Sanders-Brahms (as Helma Sanders)
Jerry Schatzberg
Nadine Trintignant
Fernando Trueba
Liv Ullmann
Jaco Van Dormael
Régis Wargnier
Wim Wenders
Yoshishige Yoshida (as Kiju Yoshida)
Yimou Zhang
Merzak Allouache (segment “Merzak Allouache/Aubervilliers”)
Gabriel Axel (segment “Gabriel Axel/Copenhague”)
Michael Haneke (segment “Michael Haneke/Vienne”)
James Ivory (segment “Merchant Ivory/Paris”)
Patrice Leconte (segment “La Ciotat 1996/Patrice Leconte”)
David Lynch (segment “Premonition Following An Evil Deed”)
Ismail Merchant (segment “Merchant Ivory/Paris”)
Claude Miller (segment “Claude Miller/Paris”)
Idrissa Ouedraogo (segment “Idrissa Ouedraogo/Burkina Faso”)
Jacques Rivette (segment “Jacques Rivette/Paris”)