Cinéorama

About

Cinéorama is a film projection process on a circular screen scanned by ten synchronized projectors. The process was developed by the Frenchman Thomas Prudhon, patented in 1897 and presented at the universal exhibition of 1900 in Paris. But he attracted such a crowd that he had to be interrupted after three days of operation for safety reasons. Contrary to a well-established legend, there was probably never a public projection, but imaginary descriptions in the press of the time and advertising brochures. On 18 August of the same year, the Société française du Cinéorama was put into liquidation.

Cinéorama, whether it has worked or not, remains by its design the first of the cinema processes projecting 360° images. Historian Jean-Jacques Meusy shed light on this beautiful legend, which successive generations of film historians have taken for cash. He was the first of the circular cinema processes: polyvision, cinema, thrillerama, wonderama, circarama, circlorama, quadravision.