Next Thursday, La Clef will reopen for a four-day victory lap of screenings, before closing for a year of refurbishment works.
Yet even in this environment La Clef has stood out, as the capital’s last remaining cinéma associatif, or volunteer-run venue.
The aim, the collective’s members said, was to protect La Clef from market forces in perpetuity.
The crucial difference is that this time they did so as legal owners of the keys to the 600 sq metre community cinema in the French capital’s Latin quarter, appropriately called La Clef (The Key).