La Clef Revival

Tech: Depending on the location DCP, Digital files, 35 and 16 mm film. Development of a mobile digital projection unit.

History: Founded in 1973, La Clef was, from its early beginnings, a cinema devoted to the work of young film-makers and to films outside the scope of the usual distribution circuits. Run under an associative status from 1990, it screened African films in particular (under the name "Image d'ailleurs"), and was known for hosting debate meetings with associations, as well as numerous festivals. As a cultural centre, the venue also welcomed artistic practice and teaching activities.

When its owner chose to close the cinema in 2018 in order to sell it, a few former employees attempted to put a takeover up, without succeeding. To raise awareness about the future of this historical cinema, a collective thus decided to occupy it and illegally screen films every evening.

From September 2019 to March 2022, the collective, made out of diverse groups of artists, squatters, young cinema professionals and inhabitants of the neighbourhood, grew and developed the associative and independent nature of La Clef. Systematising open pricing, collective programming and the passing on of know-how between volunteers and spectators, the occupation gathered a broad support.

More than 1000 films were shown – undistributed films from documentary to experimental and fiction, queer and committed shorts and feature films – and debated in the associative bar afterwards; workshops for children, cine-concerts, fanzines, webradios, exhibitions were organized; a collective residency accompanying the creation of first films was initiated.

Despite the mobilization and even, in the end, the continuous opening of the cinema from 6 am to midnight to prevent the intervention of the police, the collective was eventually evicted on March the 1st, 2022. Deciding not to give up, the collective started to negotiate with the owners of the cinema and gather donations in order to buy it, and perpetuate its activity in an associative and independent form.

For that, a juridical structure was created, Cinéma Revival, that enables to decommodify the cinema, and separate its property titles from the power of decision over its use. A selling agreement has been signed by Cinéma Revival in April 2023, and the collective is now actively working on gathering the funds. Any help is extremely precious: donations can be made at retour.laclefrevival.org.

Organisational structure: The legal status of La Clef Revival is a non-profit association. We base our activities on knowledge-sharing and skill-sharing, and our decisions-making on consensus. The audience becomes part of the non-profit as ordinary members, and can involve themselves in our non-profit as volunteers in different commissions.

Editorial line: Our association is a gathering of several groups and independent sometime novice programmers around the city. Everyone has his own policy (medium-length film, documentaries, short films, experimental, etc.) but we share a few common grounds that are sharing mostly independent and poorly distributed films, sometimes without distributors nor french release and a place for minorities to show. We try to make every screening an event, inviting if possible the director, producers, actors or anyone having a link to the film.
We also host small festivals and associations as has been done since 1973.

Commoning - To save both the cinema itself and the tools and ideas we gathered, on a long-term basis, we decided to follow the idea of Commons. Making either a place, a tool, or knowledge outside of private and public grounds.

We thus decided to go into having two legal structures : one land-holder (Cinéma Revival) and one land-user (La Clef Revival) and getting the two statutorily constrained for the owner not to be able to evict the user. And making selling the land rather complicated for the owner.

Cinéma Revival in its legal structure is an endowment fund. A legal structure in between a foundation and an association, allowing to collect donations, gifts and legacies within the framework of a mission of general interest. Its interest lies in particular in that financial contributions don't confer any power over the project.

Cinéma Revival aims at preserving and developing associative cinemas, supporting independent and/or militant creation, encouraging mutual aid, sharing experiences and networking, supporting professionalisation, facilitating access to independent cinematographic works for the most precarious.

To achieve this goal, Cinéma Revival buys buildings in the cinema community, without a system of shares or stocks. It grants full use of the premises to non-profit associations that will manage the cinema collectively with a horizontal operation.

Leaving the real estate market, the cinema can effectively become a common good, protected from speculation, independent from the editorial pressure of an owner, and with weaker economical constraints – thus enabling policies such as open pricing, collective programming, access to creation spaces at solidarity prices, and diffusion of films weakened by a mercantile exploitation system.

Cinema-making - We host several activities apart from film screenings: round-table talks, political events linked to the cinema or to the neighbourhood, concerts, independent filmmakers willing to have a place to write or edit their films, food selling for caritative purposes... We defend an open price policy for the cinema.

Regularity: Since we've been evicted by the police from the venue, our events are on Sundays at DOC! and the program can be found on laclefrevival.org.
Previously, we mostly opened daily at 7:30 pm.

Publicity: On our website, and mostly through facebook and social networks. But we also have a newsletter. Our program was published in local newspapers.

Audience: We often see newcomers and passers-by, but mostly students and film-lovers are coming to our venue, both from Paris and suburban areas.

Funding: Volunteering and open price on entrance and donations.