Cinéma Français

Cinéma Français

By Kallan Benjamin

As the site of what was likely the first ever public screening of a projected film, France is considered by many to be the birthplace of cinema itself. The French film industry was powerful and important in cinema’s early days, with companies like Pathé and Gaumont producing huge numbers of films in impressive facilities. In this collection, issues of Ciné-Journal cover this period of particular strength for the French film industry. However, like many European film industries, film production in France suffered during and after World War I. The United States’ film industry was not affected like its European counterparts and was able to make up much of the ground that the French industry lost during wartime. This is notable in some of the later publications from the 1920s and 1930s included below, like Cinéa and La Cinématographie Française, which frequently feature American-based stars and figures like Charlie Chaplin, Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Adolph Zukor.