Frédéric Mitterrand Olympic Cinema 1971

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text by SIMON LIBERATI
All images courtesy of Frédéric Mitterrand

Frédéric Mitterrand, Olympic Cinema, photo Bernard Cotte

Frédéric Mitterrand is a brillant writer, popular television host, openly gay personality, and former French Minister of Culture. One thing has remained unchanged since the beginning of his public career: his fascination with cinema — from the cinema d’auteur to the old Hollywood melodramas. In 1971, he bought a movie theater in Paris to screen obscure and flamboyant films. It attracted true cinephiles, but also drag queens, local thugs, and eccentrics. This is the story of a moment in time when a cinema could be a place to be, an underground social scene, a party. 

Frédéric Mitterrand in front of the Olympic Cinema

It was in 1971, in a working-class neighborhood of southern Paris, that the Olympic cinema first saw the light…