From Fontenay-sous-Bois to Paris, five cinemas to see before making a canvas

Lovers of arthouse films or Hollywood blockbusters, or both, but not only? These five cinemas are all places with a particular history. Engine !

The Kosmos, a red star

This almost 50-year-old cinema has a long history and its majestic red facade, very 1930s, sits enthroned with its projecting roof in Fontenay-sous-Bois, in the Val-de-Marne. Created in 1934 with a huge room of seven hundred seats with balcony and orchestra, the Kosmos went into a long decline, ending its life in the 1970s making porn movies. The orchestra on the ground floor was even replaced for a time by a convenience store. In 1978, seeing the announcement of its sale, Jean-François Voguet, then first deputy, decided to pre-empt the building. In 2013, the room was renovated, and actress Emmanuelle Devos, a resident of Fontenay, agreed to become its godmother. Today, the cinema has become a meeting place as well as a screening place.

The Cosmos 243 ter, avenue de la République, 94120 Fontenay-sous-Bois. 6 euros instead.

The Luxor, dreams of Egypt

The Luxor and its dazzling colors.

It’s a piece of Egypt in the middle of Paris. Since 1921, the Louxor has had a perfectly kitsch façade at the corner of boulevards de Magenta and de la Chapelle, an evocation of the splendours of ancient Egypt as Hollywood conceives them. This sumptuous setting housed a cinema which triumphed until the war. Then a slow decline saw it close in 1983 and become a Caribbean nightclub (La Dérobade) then a gay one (Megatown) and finally a squat. In 2010, the Paris City Hall launched a rehabilitation program. On April 18, 2013, it reopened. Three rooms are accessible today, decorated again in the original style. The programming is very “art and test”. A bar is open on the top floor. Only flaw: room 1, with its overly rectangular screen, only allows cinemascope films to be shown with strips above and below.

The Luxor 170, boulevard Magenta, Paris 10e. 10 euros instead.

11 x 20 + 14, the smallest cinema in France

Michel Le Clerc in front of the 11 x 20 + 14, in Mons-en-Montois.

Fifty places, no more, but spectators who travel tens of kilometers to come. The 11 x 20 + 14 (i.e. 234, number of inhabitants massacred on the spot on April 21, 1430 by the English) is the smallest cinema in France. Installed in an old barn with walls lined with old posters in Mons-en-Montois, a village of 485 inhabitants (10 x 40 + 85…) in Seine-et-Marne, it was founded by a nonagenarian, Michel Le Clerc, former director, who wanted to retire to make a ” home cinema “, but finally found it funnier to create and run this very small company on a voluntary basis: 250 films a year, always in their original version and drawing from a repertoire of foreign and rare films. No popcorn or pub and we start on time!

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