Salon Indien du Grand Cafe

14 Boulevard des Capucines,
Paris 75009

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Functions: Café

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Salon Indien du Grand Cafe

Located between the Olympia Music Hall and the Paris Opera House on Boulevard des Capucines. The Lumiere Brothers(Auguste and Louis) screened motion pictures for the first time to a(paid?) public audience in the basement of Salon Indien du Grand Cafe(Indian Salon of the Grand Cafe) on 28th December 1895, showing 10 different silent shorts. The 10 different shorts are listed on the Salon Indien du Grand Cafe page on Wikipedia.

The site is now a cafe(Cafe Lumiere, named after the history of the site), part of the Hotel Scribe. There is a plaque which commemorates this historic event in the history of cinema, located several feet up on the exterior wall beside the arched entrance to the cafe.

Contributed by David Coppock

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on November 7, 2016 at 3:34 am

There was other screenings of the silent shorts(unknown how long the screenings went for?), they have about 2500 people a day watching the silent shorts. Among the people watching the first screening was Georges Melies, magican, direcror of the theatre, and director of “A Trip to the Moon, and other movie shorts. There is a photo inside the Salon Indien du Grand Cafe via on of the external links on the Salon Indien du Grand Cafe page on Wikipedia. There is a photo of the external plaque on the website www.unjourdeplusaparisde.com/en/paris-insolite/premiere-seance . There is a new Grand cafe(Le Grand Cafe Capucines) at 4 Boulevard des Capucines, named in memory after the original Grand Cafe.

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on November 8, 2016 at 7:30 am

The arch and plaque can be seen to the left of the Gap store in the Streetview photo.

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on May 29, 2017 at 11:04 am

There is some information and pictures about the Salon Indien Du Grand Cafe(World’s first cinema) in the book “Great Scientists – The Lumiere Brothers(Steve Parker)” on pages 4, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25?

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