Cine Lumiere I & II

Located within the Institut Francais du Royaume-Uni in the West London district of South Kensington. The Art Deco style building was designed by French architect Patrice Bonnet, opening in 1939.

The Cine Lumiere is located on the first floor and was originally a theatre. It was retro-fitted to cinema use in 1996 to the plans of architect Jean-Francois Darin and was opened by French film actress Catherine Deneuve. The cinema had 330-seats.

The Cine Lumiere was temporarily closed from July 2008 until January 2009 for renovation to the plans of architect Stefanie Fisher. Seating was given as 225. All films are shown in their original language versions, with English sub-titles. It is equipped with digital, 35mm & 16mm projectors. In late-2019 a second screen was opened on the lower floor. It has 32 seats.

The Cine Lumiere is a Grade II Listed building.

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

Ken Roe on October 28, 2008 at 4:06 pm

A photograph of the Institut Francais building:
http://flickr.com/photos/55935853@N00/2477001202/
Entrance ceiling:
http://flickr.com/photos/maggiejones/2307593367/
Staircase:
http://flickr.com/photos/deano/2923371017/

kevinp on October 30, 2008 at 2:07 am

I worked there occasionally as relief projectionist in the evenings in the early 90’s.
The 1960’s Westars had very slow changeover shutters :they sometimes did a “wipe” across….
once, when i did a show for the birthday of film critic Phillip Berenson and friends we showed a fellini film that started off silent… then sound came through the projection box monitor…so all was fine….after a few minutes birthday boy arrived huffing at the projection door…quite high up…saying he knew the front was silent…but there was no sound at all….I stopped the show after going into the auditorium…and found that the speaker had been disconnected and wheeled away on the theatre stage…

Koistinen on November 30, 2013 at 8:11 am

Exterior photographs form February 2009.