Paris! City of Light & City of Cinema – the perfect site for Ethnografilm!
The central venue for Ethnografilm is Ciné 13 Théâtre, fantastically located in Montmartre. You want history, character, ambiance? Countless films have been inspired by this corner of Paris.
To get to our festival venue, take the metro to Blanche station. Step outside and you’ll find yourself in front of the historic Moulin Rouge, which was so memorably re-imagined by Baz Luhrmann. You’re also at the foot of the delightful market street, rue Lepic. This is the street where Amélie Poulain worked as a waitress, in director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s eponymous film. Take a moment to buy a delectable tart at the Petit Mitrons bakery on Lepic. Then stroll up the hill. You’ll pass the apartment where Van Gogh lived with his brother Theo, and the Moulin de la Galette, famously painted by Renoir.
This part of the city is filled with historic film theatres—from the blockbuster Pathé on Place Clichy to the tiny Studio 28, which was the first avant-garde cinema in France—it’s where Louis Buñuel premiered his surrealist collaboration with Dali, L’Age d’or. (Of course, by the time the film was shown, the two temperamental creators were no longer speaking to each other!)
The home of Ethnografilm, Ciné 13, is at the corner of Junot and Girardon. The cinema is right across the street from the print shop where Picasso once studied print-making. Just down rue Junot is the former home of famous Dadaist Tristan Tzara. Austrian architect Adolf Loos designed the unusual home in 1926. And the house next door once belonged to famous poster designer Francisque Poulbot. His illustrations of Parisian street urchins were so well-known, street kids started being called “poulbots” in the city’s ever-evolving slang. Street life in the 18th arrondissement is still fascinating. On the far side of the Butte, or hill, of Montmartre, is one of the city’s most varied and vibrant neighborhoods, with thriving West African food markets and traditional Arab cafés where you can smoke a hookah or narghile.
Our venue Ciné 13 has its own amazing story. Director Claude Lelouche bought this cinema in 1983 to use as a set. He renovated it into a 1920s-era club for his movie Edith et Marcel, the story of singer Edith Piaf’s tragic love affair with a boxer. Upon completing the film, Lelouche turned his set into an atmospheric movie theatre. Today, his daughter, Salome Lelouche runs the programming. And during Ethnografilm, April 17th to 20th 2014, every festival night we will retire to the argumentarium (that is, the cosy Ciné 13 lounge) to discuss the films over a glass of superlative Bordeaux.
