Serge Bromberg’s phone rang in the middle of the night. Judicial police, Val-de-Marne departmental service. Since 1 a.m., in the heart of this scorching night from August 10 to 11, 2020, a fire has ravaged the building at 30, rue de la Liberté, in Vincennes, in the Paris suburbs, where he stores part of his film reels. .
The fire, witnesses will describe, was unusually fast and violent. A man, through the smoke that enveloped the upper floors, began to shout: “I’m going to jump! » The body of Jean-Philippe P., 55, hit the firefighters’ ladder before falling to the ground, inert. On the second floor, Rachel S., 69, did not jump. A phone in hand, she called for help from her balcony. The fire ended up catching her. “She disappears in the flames, we don’t see her anymore, we just hear her screaming for a few seconds”, remembers a policeman, witness of the scene. Thirty neighbors were evacuated. For five hours the fire will swallow everything, before the firefighters manage to control it.
More than two years after the events, Serge Bromberg, a figure of French cinematographic heritage, is sent back to the Créteil criminal court, Tuesday November 22 and Wednesday November 23, for “manslaughter” and “endangering the lives of others “. The police, during their investigation, came to the conclusion that the fire had started from the garage where his company – Lobster Films, around thirty employees, created in 1985 with Eric Lange and specialized in the restoration of old films – kept its coils.
Cellulose nitrate coils, more fragile, more dangerous too, are called in the jargon “flame films”, because they have a high risk of combustion
The 180 square meter premises, acquired twenty-five years ago to store inventory, is made up of three compartments. The first houses 35mm reels. In the second, lit by a glass roof, are stored the DVDs and, finally, in a closed room, at the very back, other reels, including the most fragile, the most dangerous too, those made of cellulose nitrate, called in the “flame films” jargon, because they have a high risk of combustion.
Until the 1950s, nitrate was the rule for 35mm film. It is considered that the risk for them of igniting is real if they are exposed to heat above 41°C. As they age, they tend to break down, and the more they break down, the greater the risk. In 1952, their manufacture was definitively banned, their distribution prohibited the following year, and their projection prohibited since 1959. Long before the arrival of digital at the end of the XXe century, which will rank the 35 mm format as a quasi-antiquity, nitrate film was very early replaced by acetate film, then triacetate film, also called “safety”, or, later, polyester. But, if one is interested in “early films”, which is the case of Serge Bromberg, one is necessarily obliged to rub shoulders with nitrate films.
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