The Cinémathèque's New Permanent Exhibition Treats Luxembourgish Film as Adult History

For decades, the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg told the story of national cinema as an apologetic footnote — a sequence of false starts and noble amateurs in the shadow of bigger industries. The institution's redesigned permanent exhibition, opening this week on the Place du Théâtre, treats that same century as something more interesting: a small, frequently bankrupt, occasionally brilliant cultural project deserving of serious treatment.

Curated by Yves Steichen and the historian Lis Hausemer, the exhibition runs in three movements: silent-era newsreels and the 1929 founding of Société Luxembourgeoise des Cinémas; the long postwar interregnum and the rise of co-production via Tax Shelter (introduced 1988); and the contemporary "Film Fund era" that produced Capelito, Mr. Hublot, and the Oscar nominations of the past fifteen years.