PARIS (AFP) — Paris got a brand new temple to film Friday when the Forum des Images reopened after three years of renovations and kicked off a packed programme with a three-month cinematic homage to New York City.
The Forum, best known as the movie centre that launched the world's first annual film festival for movies made on or for mobile phones, sits deep in the bowels of the historic centre of Paris known as Les Halles.
The street it lies on, one of the maze of alleys that form a giant subterranean shopping mall, was this week officially renamed Cinema Street.
It hosts the giant UGC multiplex, which claims to be Europe's busiest cinema, and the brand-new Francois Truffaut film library named after the French New Wave director.
The Forum des Images, redesigned by architect Anouk Legendre to give it the futuristic feel of a trendy bar or nightclub, claims to be unique on two counts.
"This is the first time that a city has said to itself that its memory does not only exist in books but also in images," its director Laurence Herszberg told AFP.
"No city in the world and no capital in the world has like Paris built up a collection of thousands of films, exclusively films where the action takes place in Paris, which talk about Paris, which evoke Paris," she said.
There are documentaries, fiction films, television ads and archive images among the collection of 5,500 films, which the Forum has transferred to digital format at a cost of five million euros (6.4 million dollars).
The Forum's other claim to innovation is the way visitors can view films they select from the extensive archives.
There are five standard screens catering for audiences of 30 to 450 people, in which themed festival programmes and other events will be held, but the centre's unique selling point is its trendy viewing "lounge," said Herszberg.
"Usually in video libraries everything is centred on individual consultation, each person is in a little box with a little screen to watch the film. But here we think that that this should be an act of cinema," she said.
In the dimly lit lounge, the black walls and roof are offset by red and pink sofas on each of which two head-phone wearing people can sit together and watch a movie on a small screen.
Lining the walls are a handful of alcoves with individual viewing stations. There are also two sections cordoned off by glass walls where up to seven people can book the space for a modest fee to together watch a film of their choice.
In total the lounge can cater for 80 people at a time, with a space where teachers can take their classes for lessons in cinema.
Education is another focus of the new Forum, which before it closed for renovation was getting 300,000 visitors a year. Cinema master classes are now to be delivered every month by a major figure from the world of celluloid.
James Gray, the US director of "Little Odessa," "We Own The Night," and most recently "Two Lovers," will be the first to deliver a master class at the Forum later this month.
His intervention is also part of the first themed film festival to be presented at the revamped Forum.
One hundred and fifty films will pay homage to the world's most filmed city, New York, in a series that will continue until next March.
The following cycle of films will be on the theme of desire, followed by a couple of months of movies that focus on vengeance.
Rushed Parisians will also be able to whisk into the Forum during their lunch break for a half-hour burst of cinema in the form of short films, after which they can lunch on Mediterranean cuisine in its very trendy cafe-restaurant.
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