The 2022 Lumiere Festival (October 15-32) kicked off over the weekend for a week-long celebration of heritage films and modern masters.
Today (Oct 18) marks the start of the festival’s International Classic Film market reserved for industry professionals, the only such market in the world dedicated to classic cinema and film rights.
Highlights of this year’s event include a spotlight on Spain, a conversation with Manuel Alduy, director of cinema and digital fiction at France Télévisions, a DVD publishers fair and a focus on sustainability in the industry.
Now in its 14th edition and headed by the Cannes’ Thierry Fremaux, this year’s festival features a star-powered line-up including James Gray, Guillermo del Toro, Claude Lelouch, Nicolas Zinding Refn, Lee Chang-Dong, Jerzy Skolimowsi, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Monica Bellucci, Louis Garrel, Nicole Garcia and Marlène Jobert.
Tim Burton will receive the festival’s 14th Lumiere Award, a prize bestowed upon a film figure each year celebrating their complete filmography, and will see 17 of his films screened at the festival in addition to a Masterclass on October 21. Previous prize-winners include Jane Campion, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Ken Loach, Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood.
While French cinemas are struggling to reel in audiences in the wake of the pandemic, the Lumière festival plans to welcome upwards of 185,000 festgoers over the course of 9 days in more than 60 venues for around 425 screenings. The festival’s opening night featured a gala screening of Louis Garrel’s The Innocent that earned a standing ovation from the crowd in the 5,000-seat Lyonnaise theatre with the director and his cast Roschdy Zem and Noémie Merlant in attendance. The festival paid homage to late filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard who passed away at 91 in September.
Fremaux greeted the crowd saying: “This is the biggest cinema theatre in the world. And it would be nothing without all of you, this audience who love watching on big screens.”
Throughout the week, the festival will host retrospectives honoring Louis Malle, Sidney Lumet, Andre de Toth, Mai Zetterling, Jeanne Moreau and Meiko Kaji in addition to screenings of new titles.
These include Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Sebastian Lelio’s The Wonder, Emily Atef’s Plus que Jamais, Simon Depardon and Marie Perennes’ Riposte Féministe and several titles that premiered in Cannes in May including Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Forever Young (Les Amandiers) and The Innocent.
Other events marking the crossover between past and present include a concert homage to late filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier who also served as president of festival organiser the Lumiere Institute. The “Eastwood symphonic” will stage a homage to Clint Eastwood’s filmography by his son, musician Kyle Eastwood and his quintet alongside the national orchestra of Lyon on Wednesday.
The Lumière festival was created in 2009 by the Lumière Institute, headed by Fremaux and presided over by Irene Jacob who took over from Tavernier in 2021. The festival’s events are scattered across the city of Lyon, notably the birthplace of the first Cinematograph in 1895.
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