In Montpellier, children discover silent cinema with the Cinemed festival

Entertaining children and making them aware of the origins of the 7th art is the bet of the Cinemed Jeune Public Festival in Montpellier. For more than a month, nearly seven thousand schoolchildren in the metropolis attend cinema screenings. These are not just any films, but real institutions that are presented to them, the very premises of cinema, in the image of The sprinkler watered (1895) by Louis Lumière, the first comedy in the history of cinema.

“It’s still incredible that 130 years later, what made you laugh a lot at the time still amuses you today“, launches Géraldine Laporte, coordinator of the educational actions of the Cinemed Festival, in the room of the Émile Zola media library. The Montpellier festival wishes to educate the youngest in the image, but also in the history of cinema starting with its origin.

The mute, a timeless

Black and white films, most school children had never seen. “I have always watched color films“, exclaims a student. “There’s a lot more action than in color movies, I feel“, launches another. The reels of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are unanimous, as Manhunt (1917) with Charlot as the main star to amuse the gallery.

Even if it has taken a few wrinkles, the charm of the cinema of yesteryear continues to operate and its language still speaks to new generations. For Géraldine Laporte of the Cinemed Festival, comedy is a kind of cinema that has no age: “Speech does not exist, so it goes through body language, burlesque and comedy. We realize that it is a language that is universal and timeless“, she explains.