Eden, the birthplace of the modern cinema, is reborn
France's Eden theatre at La Ciotat, 30 kilometres east of Marseille - which later played host to Edith Piaf and Yves Montand - has had a €6.5 million (HK$68 million) refurbishment that has more than restored its former glory.
When the Lumiere brothers screened one of their first moving pictures - The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station - at France's Eden theatre at the close of the 19th century, it was said that some in the audience were so shocked by the life-like images that they leapt from their seats in terror to flee the oncoming steam locomotive.
On Wednesday, more than a century on, the black-and-white silent films lasting less than a minute were given top billing in the newly renovated Eden, which claims to be the world's first, and oldest surviving, public cinema.
The theatre at La Ciotat, 30 kilometres east of Marseille - which later played host to Edith Piaf and Yves Montand - has had a €6.5 million (HK$68 million) refurbishment that has more than restored its former glory.
Before Hollywood became the worldwide symbol of the movie industry, there was La Ciotat, a small, picturesque town on the Mediterranean that lays claim to being the birthplace of modern cinema.
There were already machines to record moving images when Auguste and Louis Lumiere came up with their Cinematographe Lumiere, a wooden box that could not only take images, but also develop and project them on to a screen.
The brothers made more than a dozen films around La Ciotat, but also recruited two-man film crews to travel the world making short films with their camera box.