There was a large crowd for the opening of the 18th Lumière Festival on Saturday evening in Lyon. For nine days, the former capital of Gaul becomes the go-to meeting place for lovers of the seventh art, with nearly 450 screenings scheduled in around fifty venues across the metropolitan area. This year, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen will be in the spotlight, with the Lumière Award due to be presented on Friday 16 October.
On the red carpet, guests were asked a single question: what is their earliest cinema memory? For German director Fatih Akin, everything goes back to a Bruce Lee film, Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection). "I must have been six when I saw it. Watching that film on Super 8 reels was like taking speed", he recalls, evoking the intensity of that first experience.
