The Crazy Ray
Giants, fairies, magicians, ghosts, dragons, and monsters of all kinds… Here’s what your Cinémathèque has in store this summer! Since Méliès, filmmakers have embraced the fanstastic potential of cinema, creating infinite phantasmagorias and extraordinary spectacles where the unreal becomes real. Step into a world of fantasy and boundless imagination: whatever your generation, the monsters and wonders that once filled your childhood dreams are back this summer 2025!
A mad scientist uses a paralysis ray to immobilize Paris. Only the guardian of the Eiffel Tower and a group of friends who arrived by plane were spared. From now on, the city belongs to them!
René Clair
René Clair was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterised by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. He was elected to the Académie française in 1960. His best known films include Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat, 1928), Sous les toits de Paris (Under the Roofs of Paris, 1930), Le million (The Million, 1931), À nous la liberté (Freedom for Us, 1931), I Married a Witch (1942), and And Then There Were None (1945).
