Cinéma Revival: let’s save the last independent associative cinema in Paris
Two years ago, we were evicted from La Clef cinema. Since then, our forces got fully mobilised to try to buy the building ourselves, the only way to ensure that it remains an independent, self-managed cinema, open to all for a long time to come.
In April 2023, after lengthy negotiations, we signed a promise of sale with the owner. This marked the start of a new chapter in the fight for La Clef, and a very important one at that: we had to raise the necessary funds before 29 March 2024!
To finance the purchase, we are counting partly on a bank loan, but also on donations from major sponsors and the public. And our crowdfunding campaign has almost reached its target, thanks to you – thank you! On the strength of your support, we’re continuing our fight to get the keys back in the spring.
Opened in 1973, La Clef is a historic cinema in the Latin Quarter, renowned for its unique programming that showcases rare films and lesser-represented cinematographies.
The cinema closed in April 2018 because the building’s owner, the Comité social et économique de la Caisse d’Épargne Ile-de-France (CSE), wanted to sell it. In September 2019, a collective made up of artists from the squat community, young cinema professionals, students and local residents decided to occupy the cinema and get it up and running again. Every evening, the collective offers an exceptional screening: heritage nuggets or works by young filmmakers, always offered at free prices and usually accompanied by a meeting with the filmmakers or members of the team.
This ‘permanent festival‘, which promotes films that are rarely seen in traditional circuits, is enthusiastically supported not only by the public but also by professionals and institutions in the film industry.
Buying La Clef to make it a public asset: where do we stand?
In 2020, when the Groupe SOS, a giant in the non-profit sector known for its predatory methods, was threatening to buy the building, the collective set up the Cinéma Revival endowment fund to buy the cinema and save it from property speculation.
The first victory came on 1st of March 2022, when Groupe SOS withdrew its bid. We then approached the owner – in April 2023, after several months of negotiations and fundraising, we agreed on a price of 2.9 million, compared with the 4.2 million initially requested!
On 26th of April 2023, we signed a provisional sale agreement with the CSE. The race against time was on, and the collective redoubled its efforts to raise the necessary sum before 29th of March 2024.
In addition to regular screenings and our fundraising activities, we organised an art exhibition and sale at the Palais de Tokyo in October 2023. Over 90 international artists donated works of art, which were sold for the benefit of La Clef. We’d like to thank them warmly for their support; you can find the catalogue here to admire their works (not all have been sold yet)!
Tout doit disparaître : exhibition-sale at the Palais de Tokyo, for the Cinéma Revival’s fund collect
Our financial plan is based on three resources: €400,000 from crowdfunding, €1.5 million from patronage and a €1 million bank loan.
We’re almost there!
Nearly €400,000 raised – THANK YOU!
The signing of this project in April 2023 would not have been possible without the strength that your donations have brought to the collective. Our spectators our supporters, in Paris and elsewhere, behind these thousands of donations, never cease to testify to the meaning and vitality of our fight. We thank you for your help and for your trust: the public is now La Clef’s number one patron!
We are approaching our target of €400,000 – and if we exceed it, we will be able to reduce the amount of the loan by the same amount! And the lower the loan, the freer future users of the venue will be to run it as they see fit.
We’ve only got a few weeks left to raise the money needed to buy the building: every donation and every vote counts, so let’s keep the word out to help bring La Clef cinema back to life!
Why raise funds?
Buying La Clef with the Cinéma Revival endowment fund will enable us to remove the cinema from the pressure of the property market, which undermines cultural venues and threatens their independence.
It’s also a way of implementing user ownership: La Clef will belong to all those who take care of it. Its spaces will be dedicated to collective use: independent programming, image education workshops for children and creative residencies. Management of the cinema will be participatory, and screenings will continue to be free of charge.
With your donation, you are helping to safeguard an independent and free exhibition space, managed on an associative and horizontal basis and open to all. Thanks to you, La Clef will become the leading cultural commons in Paris!
With your donation, you participate in the safeguarding of an independent and free broadcasting space, managed in an associative and horizontal manner and open to all. The money collected by the endowment fund will be used to purchase the walls of this emblematic building. Thanks to the collective purchase, La Clef will be the first common property in Paris!
On the form below, you can click on the british flag for English language. And to make a donation from abroad, the system allows the followign card types: CB, Maestro, Mastercard, Visa or Visa Electron and it uses the 3DSecure validating system.
Otherwise, you can email us at contact@cinemarevival.fr so we can send you the bank account details for money transfer.
Or you can post a letter to Cinéma Revival postal address: CINÉMA REVIVAL – 8 rue du Goulet – 93300 Aubervilliers – France.
If this option doesn’t work in english (unable to embed a page for security reasons), please visit the HelloAsso page on the following link. Thank you!
They support us:
Jean-Luc Godard, Catherine Breillat, Luc Moullet, Alain Cavalier, Cédric Klapisch, Noémie Lvovsky, Michel Hazanavicius, Olivier Assayas, Lucas Belvaux, Laurent Cantet, Claire Denis, Bertrand Bonello, Claire Simon, Jean-Charles Hue, Jean-Louis Comolli, Benoît Delepine, Mati Diop, Jean-Michel Frodon, Nicole Brenez, Tony Gatlif, Alain Gomis, Yann Gonzalez, Agnès Jaoui, Gustave Kerven, Léa Fehner, Marie Losier, Vincent Macaigne, Jean-Bernard Marlin, Thierry de Peretti, Caroline Champetier, the SRF, the GREC, the AFC, les Monteurs Associés, Festival Cinéma du Réel, Etats généraux du documentaire, Festival du Film de Fesses, Festival des cinémas différents et expérientaux de Paris, l’Abominable, Kino-Climates, Cinéma Nova in Bruxels, Videodrome 2 in Marseille, the Etna, ISKRA…
Description of expenditure items
€400,000 means 4,000 people donating €100
Your donation may be tax deductible! The tax reduction corresponds to the part of your tax bill that you decide yourself where it goes: the values and projects that are close to your heart. In France, the model is:
- 60% tax reduction for a company: a donation of €1,000 costs you €400.
- 66% tax reduction for individuals: a donation of €100 costs you €34.
As a thank-you for each donation, you’ll receive a postcard of your choice from La Clef cinema, and for donations of €25 or more, a unique ‘key’ ring to collect when we open(1).
Whatever the amount of your donation, you will have participated in our fight and made it possible!
Final beneficiaries of the fund collection
The Cinéma Revival endowment fund is collecting the donations for this campaign. They will be used for the cinema’s property acquisition project.
What is Cinéma Revival?
Cinéma Revival is an endowment fund created by the occupants of the La Clef movie-theater. This legal structure, a cross between a foundation and an association, collects donations, gifts and legacies as part of a mission of general interest.
Cinéma Revival’s aim is “to safeguard cultural venues with a primarily cinematographic vocation, whose management is the responsibility of the users⋅es brought together⋅es in associations that tend towards a horizontal, self-managing and participative organisation, and implement independent and collective programming“.
For over a year, the collective occupying La Clef cinema has proved the effectivenesds of this organisation: beyond the success of its activities (artistic programming and production, etc.), the venue’s economic balance is assured. Its collective administrative operation is viable. By placing the defence of threatened cinemas at the heart of its concerns, Cinéma Revival is enabling community, collective and independent cinemas to exist throughout France. Saving La Clef has clearly become Cinéma Revival’s primary mission.
More information
About the endowerment fund Cinéma Revival,
International press review,
Our project for La Clef.
- If you are unable to go to the cinema La Clef, 34 rue Daubenton (75005 Paris – FRANCE), and would like to receive your thanks by post, please send an e-mail requesting that your thanks be sent by post to the Cinéma Revival endowment fund. ↩︎