Institut Lumière and the Lumière Villa

Lyon likes to say that it invented cinema, and the Institut Lumière is the place where that claim feels earned. The museum occupies the Villa Lumière, a handsome Art Nouveau mansion in the 8th arrondissement built by the Lumière family, whose factory made photographic plates. In 1895 the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière patented the cinematograph, a lightweight camera and projector in one, and in the same year they filmed workers leaving the factory gates, a short scene often called the first film. Inside the villa you can see early cinematograph machines, including the one the museum calls the first, early colour photographs made with the autochrome process, and rooms that evoke the family’s daily life. Next to the villa stands the Hangar du Premier-Film, the last building of the former Lumière factories, now a cinema that screens classic and rare films every day and hosts retrospectives. The Institut also organises the Lumière Festival each October, a major film event that brings directors, stars and film lovers to the city. For anyone with even a casual interest in film, it is a compact, evocative visit, and it is a good rainy-day plan.

For context, the Lumière family made photographic plates in Lyon, and Antoine Lumière’s sons Auguste and Louis improved them and turned to moving images, patenting the cinematograph in 1895. Their first public paid screening took place in Paris in December 1895, and operators trained by the family travelled the world filming and showing short scenes.

The family also developed the autochrome process, an early method of colour photography that produced soft, dreamlike images, several of which can be seen in the museum. Seeing these inventions in the house where they were created gives the story a human scale, and it is a short, rewarding visit even if you are not a film buff.