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Dec

28

Arts & Entertainment

First commercial movie screened

On December 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumière, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. The Lumière brothers unveiled their invention to the public in March 1895 with a brief film showing workers leaving the Lumière factory. On December 28, the entrepreneurial siblings screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time.

Advertisement for the Lumieres Cinematographe, 1896.

FRANCE - APRIL 26: Coloured lithograph, signed Duzol. The audience are watching the film, 'L'Arroseur Arrose', in which a mischievous boy steps off a hose-pipe when the gardener examines the nozzle of his hose to see why the water has stopped. Auguste Lumiere (1862-1954) and his brother Louis (1865-1948) invented the 'Cinematographe', in 1895. This was the first machine to project images onto a screen. In the same year, they built the first cinema in Lyons, France, and by December they had successfully hosted their first show to a paying audience in Paris. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

SSPL via Getty Images

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