Chanel backs reopening of historic Paris cinema on the Left Bank

Chanel has put its weight behind the reopening of Le Saint-Germain-des-Prés, restoring a historic Paris cinema on Rue Guillaume Apollinaire in the 6th arrondissement and making a pointed investment in the city’s cultural fabric. The 208-seat house reopened on June 3 after a one-year renovation, returning to the Left Bank with a sharper role than nostalgia alone: it is meant to function as a live, working venue for film culture, not just a preserved address.

That distinction matters. The cinema, which previously operated as Silencio des Prés, was once prized by New Wave directors including Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, and Chanel describes it as a legendary Paris movie theater from the Nouvelle Vague era. The house says it supported both the reopening and the renovation, with a stated mission to showcase contemporary cinematographic creation and broaden audience reach. In a city where arthouse screens are under pressure from streaming habits and audience decline, that reads less like patronage than infrastructure, a way for a luxury house to anchor itself in Parisian taste, memory and authority beyond the runway.

The public reopening began with an inauguration on June 2, before screenings opened to audiences at 7 p.m. on June 3. The first titles included Fatherland by Paweł Pawlikowski and Congo Boy by Rafiki Fariala, chosen with Pathé and Jour2Fête. The Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée also framed the reopening around Cannes, with a program that included Notre Salut, Quelques mots d’amour, Congo Boy, Fatherland, La Vie d’une femme and Minotaure. It was a suitably cinematic debut for a room trying to reassert itself as a destination, not a relic.

Mathilde Lamour now directs the venue after three years as deputy director at Le Balzac, bringing the kind of programming experience that can make a neighborhood cinema feel essential again. For Chanel, the reopening extends a long-running relationship with film and places the house inside a wider cultural strategy already visible in its Cannes activity. The message is clear: Chanel is not just dressing the present, it is helping finance the stages on which Paris continues to define taste.