Lumière

Lumière, surname of two brothers, Louis (1864-1948) and Auguste (1862-1954), French photographic manufacturers, inventors, and pioneer film-makers who invented an early picture camera in 1895 that also functioned as a projector and printer. They called their device the Cinématographe, from which the word “cinema” is derived. Their short film, La Sortie des Usines Lumière (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory), was shown in public for the first time in 1895 at the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capuchines in Paris and is considered to be the first film. The brothers produced many such films in the same year, for example, L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare (The Arrival of a Train at the Station) and Le Repas de Bébé (Feeding the Baby), as well as the first newsreel and the first documentaries. (See also Cinema, Early Development of; Cinematography.)