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Cinema Across Continents: A Window on the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Camera Operators

General Programming

dateSeptember 14, 2026 timeMonday, 7:00pm EDT location Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room, Columbia University, Lenfest Center for the Arts
Cosponsors
  • Office of the Divisional Deans in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  • The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities
  • Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
Organizers
  • Columbia University School of the Arts
  • Columbia Maison Française
Contact
email address [email protected]
Notes
  • Free and open to the public
  • Registration required.

Auguste and Louis Lumière, pioneers of cinema, made the world’s earliest motion pictures, such as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory and Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. Seldom screened today are the hundreds of reels of film shot by the world-touring Lumière Company camera operators who used the cinématographe to document scenes of life in Mexico, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Japan, and Russia, among other far-flung sites.

Screening: Lumière Co. Film Footage - 1895–1905

Silent film piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura

Introduction: Michael Allan, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies, University of Oregon, is editor-in-chief of Comparative Literature.

This event is part of Cinema Across Continents: Rediscovering the Lumière Brothers Film Footage. The second event, Cinema Across Continents: The Lumière Brothers, 1896–1897, will take place on Tuesday, September 15, 6:30 PM, and feature an illustrated talk by Michael Allan.