Events - Alice Guy Movies theater : In March, Bobigny will welcome back a cinema in the heart of the city, with ambitious and popular public facilities.

By Mulder, 27 january 2026

The opening of the Alice Guy Cinema, scheduled for March 11, 2026, in Bobigny, marks much more than the inauguration of a new movie theater complex: it symbolizes the long-awaited return of cinema to the city center, which disappeared when the Magic closed in 2019, and embodies a key step in the urban and cultural renewal of the municipality. Supported by the Établissement Public Territorial Est Ensemble, recognized as France's leading public cinema network, this project is part of a clear and committed vision of a public cultural service that is accessible, demanding, and deeply rooted in its territory. Located at the foot of metro line 5, at the Bobigny – Pablo Picasso, close to the T1 tramway and several bus lines, the Alice Guy Cinema stands out for its accessibility, designed as an essential condition for re-establishing a lasting link between residents and their local cinema, in a rapidly changing neighborhood that will eventually be home to more than 1,200 housing units and 11,000 m² of retail space.

Designed as a multidisciplinary and lively venue, the Alice Guy Cinema will have six theaters, three of which are modular, allowing it to host live performances, concerts, theater, and dance, with a total of 865 seats. This modularity is not simply a technical argument but a true cultural manifesto, reflecting the desire to make the cinema a space for encounters, artistic exchanges, and shared practices. Added to this is an eclectic program combining mainstream cinema and arthouse films, a deliberately accessible pricing policy (from $4 to $7 per ticket, with a special single price of $4 for all screenings on opening day), and a strong commitment to film education, particularly for young people in the area. The cinema lobby, designed as a living space in its own right, will also house a café-bookstore, extending the cultural experience beyond the screening and encouraging informal exchanges between audience members, artists, and local residents.

With a total cost of €23 million, the Alice Guy Cinema project has received significant public support, with €2,929,264 from the French government and an additional €1 million from the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area, illustrating the strategic importance attached to this facility in the context of cultural and regional development policies. Through this project, Est Ensemble and the City of Bobigny are confirming their shared ambition: to offer a local cultural facility that combines artistic quality, diversity of offerings, and social accessibility, while becoming a lasting part of the daily lives of residents. This approach is in line with the actions taken in recent years, notably through the traveling screenings of the Écran Nomade, which have helped maintain a fragile but essential link between the population and the cinema while waiting for a permanent venue.

The choice of the name Cinéma Alice Guy, which came from a public consultation, has strong symbolic and deeply political significance. By paying tribute to Alice Guy, the first female director in the history of cinema and author of more than 400 films between 1896 and the 1920s, Est Ensemble has made a conscious decision to rehabilitate a major figure who has long been overlooked by official history. A pioneer of fiction cinema and a key figure in the invention of cinematic language, Alice Guy embodies creative audacity, innovation, and the fundamental place of women in the history of the seventh art. This choice is part of a broader effort to raise the visibility of women in the public sphere, already undertaken by the community through the celebration of figures such as Alice Milliat, Pina Bausch, and Mariama Bâ, and reflects a desire to pass on memories that goes beyond the simple cultural framework.

With the Alice Guy Cinema, Est Ensemble reaffirms its vision of a public cultural service based on universal access to works of art, the transmission of knowledge, and the sharing of artistic practices. Chaired since 2020 by Patrice Bessac, mayor of Montreuil, the public territorial institution brings together nine municipalities (Bagnolet, Bobigny, Bondy, Les Lilas, Le Pré Saint-Gervais, Montreuil, Noisy-le-Sec, Pantin, and Romainville) and represents a territory of more than 440,000 inhabitants committed to social justice and climate transition. In this context, the Alice Guy Cinema appears as a structuring cultural tool, destined to become a place of reference, transmission, and emancipation, driven by the creativity, diversity, and commitment of the inhabitants of Bobigny, and designed from the outset as an open, inclusive space deeply rooted in the reality of its territory.