Cinematek

*With more than 65,000 titles, the Cinematek collection gathers movies of all genres, fiction and non-fiction, from a wide variety of horizons.*

The CINEMATEK holds about 40 screenings every week. It also hosts an exhibition space equipped with a REMIX installation so that visitors can browse through cinema in a "different" manner. Eight screens mounted on the ceiling show movies fragments centered around the same topic.

These recreations can have a thematic or aesthetic focus. At the moment, there is a beautiful one dedicated to “hands”. It is a way to “exhibit” cinema, but this is also part of a cinematheque’s mission: to teach people to look at pictures, to put them in perspective, to awaken echoes…

*“I’ve always loved movies... from a very young age, I would run all around the city to go and see a première, a movie on opening night. Now, I don’t run around anymore, I just come here… and that’s better.*

__I used to go to the movie theater just like that, for no reason. But at the Cinematek, with its schedule, its documentation table, etc. I truly learn something and that's what makes a difference.__

__I thought I was a movie buff since I used to go to the theater often: I was wrong! Sure, I knew the actors, like everybody else, but not the directors. Here, when professors come and give conferences, I ask questions. And finally, I am learning cinema.”__

__[Interview with a Cinematek regular]__

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*The silent movie I am playing the piano for today is Eisenstein’s October. When you accompany a movie, it’s always a new encounter with a work you don't know. The pianist has to improvise, play as he feels it.*

__Personally, I learned two things playing at the Cinematek: to know to retain silent periods and to found my rhythm on the movie. I am not necessarily talking about “rhythm” in the musical sense here.__

__In fact, you have to choose what you are accompanying: either the atmosphere of the sequence or the character, for example. Sometimes I follow one element, sometimes just a hand…__

__The key is to hook onto something, as you cannot follow everything all the time. And if a major event suddenly occurs on screen, you do not necessarily have to stop and change everything musically.__

__You feel a particular empathy with some movies, magical moments when the piano and the image are in perfect harmony. When people tell me “We forgot you were there”, I know that I succeeded and “truly” entered the movie.”__

__[Interview with a pianist for the Cinematek]__