Best movie theaters in Paris: Ursulines Studio

Created in 1926, the Ursulines Studio is the oldest and most prestigious independent Parisian movie theatre. Not only this place has kept its original façade, but it is also the very first “Art and Essai” movie theatre, a place that promotes and screens independent, art and experimental movies. Faithful to its owner’s vision, since March 2003, the Ursulines Studio programme is mostly dedicated to the younger audience. Thanks to this movie theatre, young Parisians can discover and fall in love with the magic of true cinema. 

History

Armand Tallier and Laurence Myrga, French comedians, decided in 1925 to set a new type of movie theater in Paris, where they wanted to screen the avant-garde movies. They have chosen an ancient hall used by the Concert Colonne, a French symphony orchestra, situated in the narrow street called Ursulines. This movie theater was open on January 1926, and in the audience were among others André Breton, a co-founder and principal theorist of surrealism, Man Ray, an American-born visual artist and contributor to the dada and surrealist movements, as well as Robert Desnos, a French surrealist poet. The movies premiered that night in this movie theatre were “Entracte” by René Clair and “La Rue sans joie” by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Since its opening, the Ursuline Studio also premiered many movies directed by Luis Bunuel, Roberto Rossellini, Andrzej Wajda and Ingmar Bergman. 

A scandal

In February 1928, the screening of “The Seashell and the Clergyman” (“La Coquille et le clergyman”), an experimental French movie directed by Germain Dulac from an original scenario by Antonin Artaud, will remain remembered by one scandal. The surrealists Louis Aragon and André Breton apparently didn’t like the movie, so the fight started, and the screening of this movie was stopped. Luckily, some other more joyful events also happened in this movie theatre. For example, the Ursulines Studio was a place where one of the last scenes of the movie “Jules et Jim”, a 1962 French New Wave romantic drama directed and written by François Truffaut, was filmed. Today, the Ursulines Studio programme is mostly dedicated to the younger audience.

Practical information

The Ursulines Studio, one of the best movie theaters in Paris, is open every day, and the price for movies is 8,5 euros. The reduced price for children under 18, persons over 60, students, job seekers and teachers is 6,9 euros. This movie theatre regularly organises some reading events such as the “Reading in the darkness of a movie theatre”.