Alexandre Promio

Vocation

Notable

French film photographer and director, a pioneer in cinema and the director of Sweden's first Newsreel. The newsreel was shown for King Oscar II's arrival at the General Art and Industrial Exposition on 15 May 1897. In March 1896 he left his work as an optician to start working for Auguste and Louis Lumière. He soon became the boss of their film unit and was responsible for the education of their first cinematograph-operators. His first assignment was to present and market the new media of film worldwide. Promio visited several cities between April 1896 and September 1897. His first trip was to Madrid where he demonstrated the moving pictures on 13 May 1896. On 7 July he did a film demonstration for Tsar Nikolai II of Russia and the empress of Saint Petersburg, and after that he visited England, Germany and Hungary. In September 1896 he arrived in the USA, and filmed the first movies made of Chicago. In Italy on 25 October 1896 he filmed the city of Venice from a gondola. The film which had its premiere on 13 December 1897 in Lyon under the title Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau shows his short trip along the Canal Grande. It was most likely the world's first travel film, and the first filmed by a moving camera. Between 1914 and 1915 he was a soldier in the first world war. After the war he became a still photographer and film photographer of the Algerian government, creating 3000 photographs and 38 documentary films. Promio died on 24 December 1926, aged 58, in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. Link to Wikipedia biography