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On 28 December 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière held a paid film show in the Salon Indien of the Grand Café in Paris, traditionally counted as the birth of cinema. With their Cinématographe they projected ten films, each under a minute long: real movement could now be replayed after the moment had passed.

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The Cinématographe, patented by the brothers in February 1895, was a portable, hand-cranked box that worked as camera, printer and projector in one. The Lumière family ran a factory in Lyon making photographic plates, and their first film showed its workers streaming out of the gates. Films had been shown before: the brothers had projected this one on 22 March 1895 to about 200 members of a French society for industry, and in Berlin the Skladanowsky brothers had screened films for a paying audience on 1 November. The December show drew around 40 paying visitors and invited guests. The famous Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat was not in that programme; it was first shown in January 1896, and historians have found no report from the time of audiences fleeing from the screen.

Türkçe oku
Auguste ve Louis Lumière, 28 Aralık 1895'te Paris'teki Grand Café'nin Salon Indien adlı salonunda paralı bir film gösterimi yaptı; bu gösterim geleneksel olarak sinemanın doğuşu sayılır. Sinematografla gösterdikleri on filmin her biri bir dakikadan kısaydı; gerçek hareket, an geçtikten sonra da izlenebiliyordu.

Kardeşlerin Şubat 1895'te patentini aldığı sinematograf, elle çevrilen, taşınabilir bir kutuydu; hem kamera, hem baskı makinesi, hem de projektör olarak çalışıyordu. Lumière ailesinin Lyon'da fotoğraf levhası üreten bir fabrikası vardı; kardeşlerin ilk filmi de işçilerin fabrika kapısından çıkışını gösteriyordu. Daha önce de film gösterilmişti: Kardeşler bu filmi 22 Mart 1895'te bir Fransız sanayi derneğinin 200 kadar üyesine göstermişti. Berlin'de de Skladanowsky kardeşler, 1 Kasım'da bilet alan seyircilere film göstermişti. Aralıktaki gösterimi ise bilet alan ya da davet edilen 40 kadar kişi izledi. Ünlü Trenin Gara Girişi o programda yoktu; ilk kez Ocak 1896'da gösterildi. Seyircilerin korkup salondan kaçtığı da anlatılır, ama tarihçiler o döneme ait böyle bir habere rastlamamıştır.

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Background reading: History of film
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