This is “Eden” – a movie theater, opened 132 years ago. It is located in the south of France, in the port city of La Ciotat, near Marseilles. The first films of the Lumiere brothers were shown here. In July this year, “Eden” was officially included in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest operating cinema in the world. The director of Eden, Marie-Loire Smilovichi, is the great-granddaughter of its historical owners.
Marie-Loire Smilovichi, director of the Eden Cinema: “The cinema was built in 1889. You can see the peculiarity of this architectural structure. It has not changed since its construction and looks more like a theater than cinemas, well known to us today.”
It was in La Ciotat in 1896 that the Lumières made one of their first films, The Arrival of the Train at La Ciotat Station. The first film screening took place in the Eden cinema at the very end of the 19th century.
For more than a century, people have come to Eden to immerse themselves in the magical world of cinema as soon as the lights go out.