‘Cinémathèque Française’, a cultural facility which preserve, repair, distribute property of films, in France. A chief researcher of National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Mr. Hidenori Okada told us about the founder of the facility, Mr. Henri Langlois.
In France, Cinémathèque means collecting and preserving films. Japan also has conservation centers in each prefectures. Hiroshima City Cinematographic and Audio Visual Library is the first facility which started preserving and screening films at the same place. In today’s program, 6 films were screened, which are the collections of Mr. Henri Langlois, a collector of avant-garde films.

Mr. Kenneth Anger, who is a film director in the United States, is one of the directors who was discovered by Mr. Henri Langlois.
He has been shooting films since he was young and his film “Fireworks”, he shot when he was 20, was exhibited at ‘le Festival du Film Maudit’(A festival which screens films which didn’t previously receive attention), in France.
This film was praised by Mr. Jean Cocteau and Langlois in that film festival and that was the chance that Anger made a connection with France in his early days.
The avant-garde film was regarded as old-fashioned at the time and criticized by Godard and others, but Langlois evaluated well.
Langlois has been reputed to be a genius who connects people and movies. He is also a pioneer of film programming and has a curatorial sense. He visited Japan just once, but his influence was remarkable on Japanese avant-garde films.