“A Guggenheim of the 7th art”. The City of Cannes is thinking big for its international cinema museum and the Cannes Film Festival. 5,200 square meters of exhibition space is 800 square meters more than the Oscars museum in Los Angeles. It would be the largest cinema museum in Europe. It should be built on boulevard Raymond Picaud, between La Bocca and Le Suquet, in place of the former sports hall. “It would be the perfect place”, according to Mayor David Lisnard. It is expected to cost around 170 million euros.
An immersion in the Cannes festival
The first stone will not be laid before 2025, the inauguration will not take place before 2028. But the project is taking shape and the town hall unveiled it in part this Thursday, May 26. The part on the festival will offer an immersion in the event. “Ride the red carpet in January as in the middle of May”, loose Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate. The visitor will also be surrounded by videos up to the ceiling thanks to state-of-the-art technologies. In spirit, this 1,000 square meter part of the museum is intended faithful to the identity of the festival : glamorous, universal, international.
Then in the part managed by the Cinémathèque française you will discover the history of cinema from 1900 to the present day there too through videos but also costumes and sets for example from the film Boulevard du crime or the Children of Paradise, released in 1945.
– Photo Stéphane Dabrowski ©The French Cinematheque
– Alex Tavoularis
– Stéphane Dabrowski © The French Cinematheque
Pierre Lescure, who is presiding over the festival for the last time this year, took part in the museum project as president of the French Association of the International Film Festival. It was he who concluded the presentation with a touch of humour: “the first piece on display may be me.”