The History of Cinema Timeline: 1897

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			Argentina

			– Eugene Py shoots La Bandera Argentina (The Argentine Flag), the country’s first film. [MORE]


			Australia



		4/4 -	Salvation army worker Joseph Perry gives the country’s first public film screening. [MORE]


			Canada

			– James Freer becomes Canada’s first filmmaker. [MORE]


			Colombia

		14/4 -	The first public screening is held in the city of Colon, in the store of A. James & Co. [MORE]


			Cuba

		24/1 -	The first public screening is given at 6.30pm in the old Tacon Theatre on Prado Street in Havana. [MORE]


			France

		4/5 -	121 people die in a blaze at the Paris Charity Bazaar. [MORE]



		1/7 -	Francois Dussaud and George E. Jaubert patent their Phonorama. [MORE]



		27/11 -	Raoul Grimoin-Sanson files for a patent for his Cineorama (AKA cinecosmorama). [MORE]

		28/12 -	Charles and Emile Pathé found the Compagnie Générale de Cinématographes, Phonographes et Pellicules (Anciens Etablissements Pathé Frères). [MORE]







			– Georges Melies builds a studio in the garden of his home. [MORE]












			– Emile Reynaud experiments with photographic methods of illuminating the Theatre Optique. [MORE]


Great Britain



Aug -	Charles Urban joins the Continental Commerce Company and renames it the Warwick Trading Company. [MORE]

22/11 -	Blackburn Market on a Saturday Afternoon, the first film from Mitchell & Kenyon, makers of ‘local films for local people,’ is first screened. [MORE]



	– George Albert Smith and James Williamson become active in Brighton. [MORE]




	– Cecil Hepworth’s Animated Photography, or the ABC of the Cinematograph, the first British book on filmmaking, is published. [MORE]

	– E. G. Turner and J. D. Walker begin renting their collection of films to other showmen. [MORE]


	Greece

	– The first public screening is given in Athens in the spring. [MORE]


	Japan

Feb -	Edison and Lumiere projectors make their debuts within a week of each other. [MORE]


	Morocco

	– The first public screenings are given. [MORE]


	Philippines

1/1 -	The first public screening takes place at the Salon de Pertierra at No. 12 Escolta. [MORE]


	Romania

10/5 -	Paul Menu shoots the country’s first film – a record of the Royal Parade. [MORE]


	Russia



	– Film shot by Boleslaw Matuszewski allows French president Felix Faure to refute an allegation made by General Otto Von Bismarck that he failed to bare his head to the Russian flag. [MORE]


	Serbia

6/3 -	Andre Carr shoots the first film made in Serbia. [MORE]


	Sweden

	– The first public screening is given at the General Exhibition of Art & Industry in Stockholm. [MORE]


	Thailand

9/6 -	The first public screening is given. [MORE]


	Tunisia

	– Albert Samama Chikly organises the country’s first public screening. [MORE]


	Turkey

	– Sigmund Weinberg, a Romanian ex-pat living in Istanbul, gives the country's first public screening in his café in the fashionable entertainment district of Pera. [ADD]


	USA



Jan -	The American Biograph is introduced to England by Elias Koopman. [MORE]

17/3 -	Enoch Rector and Samuel J. Tilden film a boxing match between James Corbett and Fitzsimmons on Rector’s Veriscope in widescreen. [MORE]



15/5 -	Siegmund Lubin’s first film, Unveiling of the Washington Monument is released for peep-show exhibition. [MORE]

16/5 -	The Burglar on the Roof, Vitagraph’s first fiction film, is released. [MORE]

24/7 -	The Dingley Bill, which will result in a US embargo on the Lumieres’ Cinematograph, is passed. [MORE]

5/8 -	Admiral Cigarette, the first filmed advertisement, is lodged for copyright at the Library of Congress. [MORE]

31/8 -	The patent is finally issued for Edison’s Kinetoscope. [MORE]

22/11 -	The Horitz Passion Play premieres at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. [MORE]

	– The American Vitagraph Co is formed. [MORE]

	– American Mutoscope & Biograph Company’s The Haverstraw Tunnel, the first ‘Phantom Ride’ film, is released. [MORE]


	Venezuela

28/1 -	The first public screening is given at the Teatro Baralt, Maracaibo. [ADD]



	Other Films of Note


	Belgium

	‘chand d’habits (M. Alexandre)


	France

	L’Auberge ensorcelee (Georges Melies)

	Le Cabinet de Mephistopheles (Georges Melies) [ADD]

	Les Dernieres Cartouches (Georges Melies) [ADD]


	Gt. Britain

	Comic Face (G. A. Smith) [ADD]

	The Maid in the Garden (G. A. Smith) [ADD]

	Making Sausages (G. A. Smith) [ADD]

	The Miller and the Sweep (G. A. Smith) [ADD]

	Weary Willie (G. A. Smith) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1897