The world’s first movie studio is getting a 120th birthday party this month in an exhibition at Singapore’s National Design Centre.“Gaumont: 120 Years of Cinema” tells the story of the Gaumont Film Company, known for movies like Godard’s “Weekend” (1967) and Fellini’s “8½” (1963). The show, which features clips from Gaumont’s greatest hits as well as vintage movie posters (visitors should look for the beautiful hand-painted poster of Charlie Chaplin in “The Great Dictator”) is part of the larger Voilah! 2016 French cultural festival run by the Institut Français. Founded in 1895 by Léon Gaumont as a camera equipment company, Gaumont Film Company released its first short films in 1897. The films were originally intended to promote sales, but they quickly attracted enormous attention in their own right.Gaumont’s 900-film catalog runs the gamut from the classics of masters like Godard and Fellini to Luc Besson’s blockbusters “Léon: The Professional” (1994) and “The Fifth Element” (1997). Gaumont has brought viewers crowd-pleasers like “Intouchables” (2011), the story of a paraplegic millionaire and his friendship with an ex-convict, and obscure art-house treasures like Jean Vigo’s quixotic 1933 masterpiece “Zero for Conduct” as well. In a word, the studio is a French institution.Yet while “Gaumont: 120 Years of Cinema” is very much a celebration of the studio’s French roots, the show also seeks to stake a claim for Gaumont as a major player in the history of film.Visitors to Voilah! will have the chance to appreciate this legacy at a screening series that will coincide with the Gaumont exhibition. Can’t-miss classics on the schedule include “8½,” Louise Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” (1958), and Jean Renoir’s “French Cancan” (1954), which stars Edith Piaf as the French singer Eugénie Buffet.“Gaumont: 120 Years of Cinema” runs April 15-May 15 at the National Design Centre in Singapore.
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