The Lumière Festival was sold out last Sunday when the unanimous tribute paid to Bertrand Tavernier. At the Lyon auditorium, more than 2,000 people, anonymous, actors, directors, his relatives, came to express their emotion to the Lyon filmmaker.
Bertrand Tavernier has always proclaimed his attachment and his love for his hometown, Lyon. His third film, The Watchmaker of Saint-Paul (district of Lyon), is proof of this. Moreover, it is in Lyon, thanks to the Lumière Institute, which he chaired since its creation in 1982, that the director co-created with Thierry Frémaux, the Lumière festival in 2009.
During the evening in his honor, Thierry Frémaux spoke about the inspiration that the Lyon cinephile could transmit: “Many of us have met him and seen our lives changed because we have seen his films, because we have heard him speak. And he taught us to rebel and to make up our own minds.“, he describes. This compliment resonates with the spectators. They even describe it “as part of the heritage” cinema, which has done everything to highlight the inventions of the Enlightenment.
The actors, his friends, like Marie Gillain underline the greatness of the man. “He was at the same time a big figure of the cinema, a great man and he was at the same time a little boy who was delighted with lots of things”, explains the actress.
During the evening, spectators again savored cult scenes from films such as Around midnight (1986), L.627 (1992) or again Captain Conan (1996). Jacques Gamblin and Raphaël Personnaz have for their part read excerpts from an autobiography by Bertrand Tavernier to be published in the coming weeks.
Music is part of the scenario of this commemoration. Like a film, this event shed light on the work and life of the director, an artist who has contributed a lot to Lyon and to the cinema.
