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Hogfather wrote: Sat Nov 22, 2025 1:54 pm Lumiere! Le Cinema

hearthesilence wrote: Sun Jan 11, 2026 6:43 am MoMA just premiered a Janus owned film that’s certain to be released by Criterion:

MoMA wrote: Lumière, Le Cinéma! 2025. France. Directed by Thierry Frémaux. New York premiere. DCP courtesy Janus Films. In French; English subtitles. 105 min.

This year’s To Save and Project invites audiences to witness the birth of cinema with the New York premiere of Thierry Frémaux’s Lumière, Le Cinéma! (2025), about the pioneering achievements of the French entrepreneurs Auguste and Louis Lumière in the late 19th century. Introducing the screening on January 10 is Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, the Institut Lumière, and the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France, the birthplace of these remarkable brothers. He brings a wealth of insight, history, and revelation to this journey back to the 1890s, when the Lumière Company, with their astonishing new invention, the cinematograph, made it possible for audiences to voyage around the world in moving pictures for the first time. Featuring gorgeous new restorations of more than 100 comedies, dramas, and travelogues—some famous, some forgotten, and some never before seen—and set to an evocative score of period music by Gabriel Fauré, this wondrous documentary enables contemporary viewers to imagine an entirely new language of storytelling unfolding film by glorious film. A weeklong theatrical run of the film will also take place at MoMA in March.

Frémaux explains they did this because a feature was more likely to get screened in theaters, and that was the main reason for restoring these glorious films - to return them to the big screen. It makes a huge difference and seeing them on the museum’s biggest screen was a revelation. When these films were made, they really wanted them to look like a window into life, and it’s startling how good these films look thanks to the careful preservation of the original negatives, something the brothers took the time to do when film preservation wasn’t really standard practice yet. (Peter Becker was there and I overheard him say he was knocked out by how everything looked.) About 150 films were sequenced for this feature, each less than a minute, and they are accompanied by subtitled narration so a home release might be appreciated as a way to remove the titles when a clean visual is preferred.

But watch it with the narration, it makes a great case as to why these early films had great artistry to them, as if the seeds for so much of cinema’s future was already being sown. Even self-reflexive filmmaking was quickly birthed in these films, and plenty of other details reveal these films to be quite modern and less “primitive” than one would think.

The closing highlights include a 75mm film that they were unable to project back in the day so over a century later this was its proper premiere.

It was quite the event, with Paul Schrader, Xavier Dolan, Julian Schnabel, Jerry Schatzberg (glad he’s back) and Isabella Rossellini in attendance, and she must’ve loved hearing the film compare the Lumières and Georges Méliès to her father and Fellini respectively.

Lowry_Sam wrote: Fri Feb 27, 2026 6:04 pm Just went to Janus' website to see what is getting distributed and where it's playing & was surprised that there's no info on actually where and when films are playing despite placing "Now Playing" on the new distributions. It provides buttons to "Book Now" but I'm not seeing any lists for actually where and when films are playing or even a prompt to pull up theaters in yor area. Seems like this would help the promotion of the films they're distributing.

yoloswegmaster wrote: Tue Dec 16, 2025 8:52 pm Looks like Janus has also picked up Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Chime, and will be screening it alongside the restoration for Serpent's Path in the spring next year.

dadaistnun wrote: Fri Oct 24, 2025 3:22 am Sophy Romvari posted on Instagram that Janus will be releasing her feature debut, Blue Heron, next year.

FrauBlucher wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 2:39 am Tokyo Melody

FrauBlucher wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 2:39 am Everyones favorite is now with Janus Here

FrauBlucher wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2026 12:03 am More Naruse Floating Clouds

DeprongMori wrote: Thu Apr 09, 2026 3:17 pm Barbara Kopple’s American Dream (1990) has just received a 4K restoration and will be touring courtesy of Janus Films.

yoloswegmaster wrote: Tue Jun 10, 2025 7:38 pm As mentioned in the other forum, Criterion/Janus also did the restoration for ROBERT WILSON AND THE CIVIL WARS, which is also premeiring at the Ritrovato festival. I've never heard of this, and it appears most people haven't either since only 7 people have this logged on IMDb and 17 on Letterboxd.