Feature Screenplay
The Cinéma Template
A struggling creative director tries to design a CMS template on a platform she barely understands. Plus, sharks.
Synopsis
GUESS WHAT
Set over the course of a single November night in a provincial French town, The Cinéma follows Cary (29), the sole remaining employee of the Cinéma du Fleuve - a second-run house awaiting the wrecking ball at first light. While cataloguing the final reels for transfer to a state archive, Émile discovers an unmarked canister sealed with red wax behind a false panel in the projection booth. Inside: seventeen minutes of footage, shot on 35mm, bearing no title card but a handwritten note in Russian.
What unfolds is a meditation on memory, institutional forgetting, and what it means to be the last custodian of something that was never meant to be seen. As Émile threads the reel and the images begin to move — a woman walking through fog, a horse standing still in a flooded field, a door opening onto white — he realizes he may be the only living person to have witnessed this film. And the demolition crew arrives at six.
Théo Von Trout
Scene Excerpt
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Characters
ÉMILE GRANDJEAN
29. Former cinéphile turned resigned civil servant. Spent thirty years threading the same projector. The cinema is the only place he has ever felt at home, and he has never once tried to leave.
SOLANGE
35. The demolition supervisor. Practical, not unkind. She has overseen seven buildings this season. She does not understand why the old man is crying.
Théo Von Trout
Listen | Table Read
Table read audio · Link configured in CMS
Writer Influences
Star Wars and Matthew Mccoghsnhry (is that how you spell it?)
The Playlist
Spotify / Apple Music playlist · Link configured in CMS
Written by
Cailee Renee
Artwork by
Théo Von Trout
Creative Direction
Avenir Cinéma Editorial Team
Status
Seeking Funding
Adapted From
Loosely inspired by The Taming of the Shrew