KURSAAL

Directed by Davide Rapp

"Kursaal" is a short 360-degree documentary dedicated to the CineKursaal in Rumelange, Luxembourg's oldest movie theater, which opened in 1911 and never closed since. The CineKursaal went through the Nazi occupation, survived the devastation of World War II, resisted the growing success of television in the 1970s, and renewed itself by automating the projection room in the late 1980s. Not even the advent of multiplexes, the temporary closure of theaters due to the pandemic, and the growing success of streaming platforms were able to interrupt the CineKursaal's glorious history. Through the personal recollections of its owner Raymond Massard, great-grandson of Conrad Massard who first managed the cinema in 1911, the short documentary tells the story of a cultural infrastructure rooted in Luxembourg's history. Archival materials and immersive video overlap in an intimate narrative that celebrates the cinema's past, reflects on its present, and looks to its future.