An Experience of Grand Proportions at Cinémathèque Française

Cinémathèque Française houses the largest archive of films, movie documents and film related projects in the world. The collections origin seems to stem from the intensive efforts of Henri Langlois in the 1930s to collect and preserve films. Langlois acquired one of the largest collections in the world by the beginning of World War II, only to have it nearly wiped out by the Germans in occupied France. They ordered the destruction of films made prior to 1937. Langlois and his friends smuggled a huge number of films and documents to unoccupied France to protect them until the end of the war.

The Cinémathèque Française holds daily screenings of a variety of films from all over the world.