The Closing Ceremony of the Lumière festival 2014!

Posté le  20.10.2014 à 16H20

"I always dreamed something like this would happen, and it has happened in Lyon."
-Pedro Almodóvar.

© Institut Lumière / Photo Lea Rener

To the beat of Resistiré, the up-tempo anthem of the 6^th edition of Lumière, Pedro Almodóvar sauntered down the aisles, signing autographs, greeting admirers in his path with the roaring applause of a crowd on its feet. As the Spanish filmmaker took his seat in the hall, the 450 volunteers along with the Institut Lumière and Lumière festival teams joined Thierry Frémaux on stage. After the festival director expressed his thanks to all of them for their exemplary work, he announced an innovation this year: the election for Best Film screened at the festival, voted by students from the region. The "Lumière High School Prize" ended in a tie, bestowing the Best Film award to both It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra and High Heels by Pedro Almodóvar.

It was then Bertrand Tavernier and Gérard Collomb's turn to join the group on stage. The Mayor of Lyon and President of Greater Lyon officially proclaimed the city's commitment to a 7^th edition of Lumière next year. Bertrand Tavernier went even further in his comments, praising the growing audiences and their expanding interest at the screenings, hardly containing his enthusiasm: "It's like a shot of vitamins for at least a year!" Thierry Frémaux then added that the festival is also a place of activity and exchange for the film industry with the Classic Film Market, where buyers and sellers from around the world have made deals that will give heritage films a new life. The festival director also saluted intelligent cinephiles who allow films to continue to exist and gave credit to filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar, a director who keeps great classics alive in his own works.

It was time for the filmmaker to make his way to the stage, accompanied by Marisa Paredes, under appreciative and eager applause! Arriving in the middle, Almodóvar greeted the volunteers before addressing, with deep feeling, all present: "My heart is overflowing with emotion. I dreamed that something like this would happen to me, and it has happened to me in Lyon." With a Spanish flag unfurled in the audience, Almodóvar asserted his belief that the Lumière festival will last a century, and that, in celebrating him as a filmmaker, the festival has honored and recognized all of Spain and its culture. Finally, the elegant Marisa Paredes took to the microphone and pronounced an iconic phrase from the film All About My Mother (screened a few moments later), "I have always had faith in the kindness of strangers!"

All week long in Lyon, keen audiences of strangers did indeed show Pedro Almodóvar how he has created an amazing body of work, how much that work matters, and how his films will, and must, continue!

Photo gallery of the closing ceremony: