PARIS — Fashion, film and fine art will join forces for Cinema Paradiso, a four-day film festival at the Louvre, with support from Chanel.
The house has boarded as a sponsor for this summer’s edition of the open-air film festival held in the Cour Carrée. The event, which runs Wednesday to Saturday, will transform the heart of the museum into a community space with food, concerts and evening film screenings.
Longtime Chanel ambassador Sofia Coppola will open the program, hosting a 25th anniversary screening of her debut film “The Virgin Suicides.”
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The event is organized by French indie cinema group MK2. Cinema Paradiso first launched in 2013 as a private, ticketed event at the Grand Palais. In 2019, it relocated to the Louvre and shifted toward a free, public-facing event.
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Chanel was on board in 2015, in part due to its longstanding ties with the Grand Palais, but this year is the house’s first time supporting the festival at the Louvre location.
“What we love about Chanel is that they are very sincere in their investment toward cinema. They are supportive of movie productions and movie restorations, and have a long-term engagement with the film industry,” MK2 chief executive officer Elisha Karmitz told WWD, noting the house has a team specifically dedicated to film partnerships.
That division is overseen by Elsa Heizmann, Chanel’s global head of fashion’s relationship with cinema. She told WWD the house’s return to the project reflects its broader belief supporting cinema.
“Inviting the public to discover or rediscover films on the big screen in the heart of iconic Parisian locations naturally aligns with Chanel’s belief that cinema should be an experience of wonder and sharing,” she said. “This year’s eclectic programming in the Cour Carrée of the Louvre once again promises four absolutely magical evenings.”
Chanel brought on board Coppola to present her cult classic on opening night.
“It was a somewhat crazy idea but one that immediately excited us,” Heizmann said of inviting the director. “Sofia Coppola is a cult filmmaker both for viewers like me who saw ‘Virgin Suicides’ when it was released 25 years ago and for a whole new generation of young directors and cinephiles who are discovering her films and are often moved or inspired by her work,” Heizmann said.
Coppola’s longstanding relationship with Chanel runs deep. Chanel recently created the wedding dress worn by Cailee Spaeny in Coppola’s film “Priscilla,” and she directed the teaser for Chanel’s most recent Cruise collection.
“The relationship between Chanel and Sofia has been long established and has grown over time through multiple creative collaborations,” Heizmann said.
Chanel’s renewed involvement with Cinema Paradiso highlights the House’s deep and ongoing ties with the industry, a relationship that extends beyond red carpet dressing. “This [event] perfectly illustrates the uniqueness of the relationship and dialogue that Chanel maintains with the Seventh Art,” she added.
This year’s event coincides with the weeklong gap between men’s fashion week and couture, which starts on Sunday. The Louvre itself is hosting its first exhibition dedicated entirely to fashion, on view through Aug. 24. That made the inclusion of fashion-minded films a natural choice, Karmitz said.
“With fashion in mind, bringing in Coppola was quite obvious,” he said. In the fashion vein, MK2 also programmed Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” long considered one of the most stylish films of the 2000s.
The lineup also includes a tribute to David Lynch, whose films were long distributed by MK2.
“It was important to have to us and for the family to pay an homage to David,” Karmitz said.
The festival will close with the public premiere of “The Secret Agent,” the Brazilian feature directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and starring Wagner Moura. The two took home the best director and the best actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May and will be on hand to present the film.
Karmitz emphasizes that this will be a cinema experience, with a full theater-quality movie screen and the quality sound to match. “It’s about honoring cinema with technical excellence, even in an outdoor setting. It’s kind of a French way of doing a big pop-up cinema event,” he said.
He described the project as an effort to elevate film as an art form among fine art, as well as build communal experiences in this divided, algorithmic age.
“The idea is also to express the fact that cinema is bringing people together to share emotions collectively in front of a piece of unique storytelling,” Karmitz said. “That’s the purpose of art. That’s the purpose of the Louvre — to create enlightenment, create education, and to create a community together.”
Karmitz noted that the Louvre’s broader summer programming reflects a shift toward inclusion. “It’s also a way for many Parisians who sometimes won’t enter the Louvre for an exhibition to get in contact with this space and this more classical culture,” he said.
“We consider cinema as a total art,” Karmitz added. “Cinema would be impossible without fine arts, without fashion, without photography, without music.”
Other programming includes concerts and a variety of food trucks for a festival atmosphere ahead of the screenings.Tickets are distributed through an online and social media lottery, while Chanel will host an opening night cocktail.