Les mystères du premier film

This film based on an idea of Bertrand Tavernier. It is a sort of "making off" (a film about a film) of the First Film, which was shot in Lyon by Louis Lumière just one century ago, on a site which still contains a few remaining vestiges of the former Lumière factories. What can we re-enact of the conditions in which the first film was shot ? Was Louis Lumière an inventor, or was he the first film-maker ? Was this the start of a new art form ? By using methods of investigation, he will make it a point of honor to demonstrate via this documentary that Louis and Auguste's invention still deeply affects and fascinates us, and show to what extent Louis Lumière the film-maker has things to teach the directors of the present-day and tomorrow. —Professor Goran de Angelis