Institutions and events of the Swiss seventh art
In the world of the seventh art, Lausanne has long been considered the leading city in Switzerland. It first earned this title thanks to the Cinémathèque suisse, an institution founded in 1948 and housed in the Montbenon casino. The Cinémathèque suisse is one of the ten most important film libraries in the world, a title earned thanks to its size and wealth of collections. While the archive is located in Penthaz, the administrative headquarters and screening rooms are in Lausanne. In 2010, the city invested in the seventh art and purchased the Capitole cinema, an institution built in 1928. In addition to safeguarding this cinematographic heritage, Lausanne offers the Cinémathèque a major asset, as it gains the largest cinema in Switzerland (869 seats). In 2019, an expansion project is approved and Le Capitole is renamed La Maison suisse du cinéma. In addition to institutions, the capital of the canton of Vaud is also active on the events front. Since 2002, the city has hosted the annual Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival (LUFF). This festival aims to promote the creation of independent works. For the past eighteen years, the LUFF has hoped to bring a range of cinematographic works, mostly experimental, to a wider audience. In 2023, another Swiss seventh art event, the Ciné-festival, organized by the Cinémathèque suisse, celebrated its twenty-sixth edition.
Works and personalities
Lausanne's seventh art is also the birthplace of many filmmakers. Indeed, among its most talented children is Anne-Marie Miéville, filmmaker, producer, photographer and wife of another Swiss child, Jean-Luc Godard. Miéville and Godard made several films together, including Ici et ailleurs (1974), Contre l'oubli (1991, made in trio with Alain Resnais) and The Old Place (1998). Like Miéville, filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Bron also hails from Lausanne. Bron is best known for his documentaries Connu de nos services (1997, presented at Locarno), Mais im Bundeshuus - Le Génie helvétique (2003, voted best documentary at the Prix du Cinéma Suisse) and Cleveland contre Wall Street (2010), presented at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes. More recently, Bron co-wrote Proxima with director Alice Winocour, released in 2019, starring Eva Green and Matt Dillon. Also from this part of the canton of Vaud is Lionel Baier, head of the cinema unit at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne and winner of the Prix Culturel Jeunes Créateurs and Best European Director at NEFF in 2005. Lausanne also gave birth to actor and photographer Vincent Perez, known for his roles in the famous Cyrano de Bergerac (1990, with Gérard Depardieu), La Reine Margot (1994), Fanfan la Tulipe (2003) and Dalida (2017). In 2016, Pérez directed Seul dans Berlin and, two years later, created Les Rencontres du septième art de Lausanne, a film festival held every year in March. Finally, among the works that have set their scenes within the city walls are Les Indiens sont encore loin (1977, Patricia Moraz), Merci pour le chocolat (2000, Claude Chabrol), L'amour est un crime parfait (2013, Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu) and Moka (2016, Frédéric Mermoud).
