The adventure begins…

“One day in March 1895. Around noon, the doors of the Lumière factory in Lyon open. Before them, a new invention: the cinematograph. The adventure begins. 17 meters of film; a width of 35 millimeters. 50 seconds of an eternity that still lasts…”

This is how Lumière starts! The adventureof Thierry Frémaux (2017) begins, a selection of 108 restored films about the origins of cinema and an explicit recognition of the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumièrefor their wonderful invention. Historical images, that Frémaux comments and analyzes voice-over, and where, among other issues, we can verify that not only did they invent the cinematograph, but they also laid the foundations for a new language, and that they were the creators of the first filming techniques , the first tricks, the staging and even the first traveling…

It is a unique opportunity to approach, as spectators, the magical moments of those first projections and see the moving images of the output of the workers of the Lumière factory; the irrigated irrigator, the first work of fiction in the history of cinema; or the arrival of the train to the station of La Ciotat, considered the first work of suspense, and even terror, which is what must have felt that audience to see approaching that huge locomotive that is about to overwhelm them.

It is also a film that serves to remember how well they care for and promote their films the French, and making us reflect on the importance of preserving the cinematographic and audiovisual heritage of any part of the world, because cinema is part of history and cultural identity of all the peoples. We firmly believe in it.

Thank you all for continuing to trust in “My Retina Me Engaña”.
Happy Sixteenth Edition 2018

ANTONIO DONÍS
Director of the Ponferrada International Film Festival