The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, were French manufacturers of photography equipment best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and the short films they produced, which places them among the earliest filmmakers. They held their first public film screening on December 28, 1895, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris, showing ten short films of approximately 50 seconds each using their hand-cranked Cinématographe, a device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures. This screening is traditionally regarded as the birth of cinema as a popular form of entertainment. Some of the films they presented were Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, The Gardener, Horse Trick Riders, Fishing for Goldfish, The Blacksmiths, Baby's Breakfast, Jumping Onto the Blanket, Cordeliers' Square in Lyon, and The Sea. Although they had previously screened a single film for a private audience on March 22, 1895, the December 28th event is considered the first commercial public screening. The Lumières' work led to the rapid expansion of the film industry. The brothers viewed film as a novelty and withdrew from the film business by 1905, later developing the first practical photographic color process, the Autochrome Lumière.
