Cinémathèque de Saint-Etienne

Since it was founded in 1922, the Cinémathèque de Saint-Etienne has been responsible for preserving and showcasing the film heritage of the Saint-Etienne region. The initial collections comprised educational films and slapstick silent movies, then expanded to theatrical films (35 mm, 16 mm, 9.5 mm), documentaries, short and feature-length films, and stencil-coloured films, not to mention regional films made by the film archive or amateur film-makers as early as 1923. Schools, youth organisations or film clubs can book to screen these films. The 1980s marked a turning point for the archive, which started to acquire institutional films (made by companies, local authorities, associations, etc.) and to systematically collect amateur films, which were then digitised. The archive currently holds a collection of over 8,000 films, including educational, commercial, institutional and experimental films, documentaries and films for cinephiles, from the invention of cinema to the present day, on film, video or digital media. The collection also comprises 120 film magazines, 2,800 specialist books, 1,800 movie posters and over 600 devices (projectors, cameras, editing tables, etc.).