Director: Louis Lumière

Cast: Auguste Lumière , P.J.C. Janssen

Neuville-sur-Saône: Débarquement du congrès des photographes à Lyon is quite unique in the history of cinema, not only because it is one of the first films ever made, but because the people who appear on it are also the members of the first audience to see a film projected onto a screen. The people filmed disembarking from a boat are photographers arriving for a congress on photography at which the Lumières demonstrated their invention – and how better to amaze your peers than to show them their own moving image smiling, waving or studiously ignoring the curious contraption greeting them on the dock. It’s quite an interesting film – better than the more famous La sortie des usines Lumiere because the workers leaving the factory in that film were aware that they were to be filmed and were instructed not to stare at the camera (although a few obviously couldn’t resist…)

(Reviewed 28th May 2009)