Institut Lumière (Villa Lumière)

Birthplace of cinema — the villa where the Lumière brothers invented film in 1895

Lyon's Monplaisir neighbourhood is the birthplace of cinema. It was here that Auguste and Louis Lumière developed and patented the Cinématographe, the camera-projector that made moving pictures a practical possibility, and it was their factory's exit on the Rue Saint-Victor that featured in one of the world's first motion pictures in 1895.

The Institut Lumière occupies the Lumière family villa and the original factory buildings. The museum traces the history of the invention with original equipment (the actual Cinématographe machines), family photographs, early film posters, and a detailed account of how the brothers arrived at their invention. There is also a cinema showing classic and restored films. The villa itself — a handsome bourgeois Lyon mansion — is worth seeing for its architecture alone.

things to do museum
A story
On 28 December 1895, the Lumière brothers held the world's first paying cinema screening in the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, showing ten short films including La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon — workers leaving their factory gate in Monplaisir. The audience reportedly fled the room when a train appeared to rush toward them on screen. The Lyon factory where the films were shot is now the Institut Lumière.