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Paris’ popular arthouse cinema La Clef will officially reopen its doors on January 14 for the first time since 2019, following a lengthy legal battle backed by high-profile filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, to save the venue from closure by developers.
The cinema’s first day back open will begin with a musical performance and opening remarks from the La Clef Collective, the group running the cinema’s operations, before the opening screening. The film set to screen is Suhaib Gasmelbari’s 2019 feature, Talking About Trees. A poetic choice, the film, which screened at Berlin, tells the story of Suliman and three further members of the Sudanese Film Club who have decided to revive an old cinema.
La Clef’s first-run programme features a series of one-off events and rare screenings, such as Lizzie Borden’s Regrouping, which will be screened on January 15 with filmmaker Céline Sciamma in attendance. French filmmakers Agathe and Adam Bonitzer will screen This Life of Mine (Ma vie ma gueule), the last feature by their mother, Sophie Fillières. Pip Chodorov will introduce a rare screening of Jonas Mekas’s 2012 feature Outtakes From The Life Of A Happy Man.
The campaign to save La Clef was an almost five-year battle and began with a bold community occupation of the building, which grew into an international movement involving film industry figures, lawyers, activists, and government officials.
The group bought the building with €2 million raised through an online fundraising campaign. €400.000 was raised from 5000 individual donations with contributors including filmmakers and actors such as Wang Bing, Leos Carax, Céline Sciamma, Sophie Fillières, Agnès Jaoui, and Irène Jacob. The remaining cash was raised through an art sale, including a work donated by the late David Lynch, and a series of generous donations from patrons, including Pulp Fiction filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Back in 2023, just before the Cannes debut of Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese shared a video message followed by an op-ed in the French newspaper Libération voicing his support for the cinema. Halloween filmmaker John Carpenter also shared a video in support of the La Clef movement. The Sweet East filmmaker Sean Price Williams was one of the many filmmakers like Frederick Wiseman, Céline Sciamma, and Leos Carax, who visited the cinema when local volunteers and cinephiles occupied the building after its closure to host daily screenings and talks.
Further cash to aid renovations was raised through extensive fundraising efforts, including a tour of New York City, where members of the collective held screenings across the city. La Clef sits on the edge of Rue Daubenton in Paris’ fifth arrondissement.
English (US) ·