(May 2026)
By the mid-1950s, the Château de La Napoule was already welcoming cinema figures gathered for the Cannes Film Festival. In photographs from the time, faces such as Federico Fellini, Marcel Pagnol, Olivia de Havilland and Brigitte Bardot appear in the Château gardens, between visits, lunches and festivities linked to the Festival.
Even then, the place seemed shaped by stories, cinema and encounters.
More than sixty years later, something of that energy still remains.
This May, the Château once again became a space for transmission, listening and creation. Theatre, music, working-class memory, writing, sound performance and cinema intersected here, bringing the stories of the past into dialogue with those being shaped today.
Memories of Miners in La Napoule
On Sunday, May 3, around fifty people gathered at the Château for Memories of Miners in La Napoule, an event dedicated to the stories of the Nord–Pas-de-Calais mining basin and its singular connection to La Napoule.
Through screenings, readings and conversations, individual trajectories gave substance once again to a collective memory often reduced to a few archival images. The film Des vies au fond by André, Bernard and Christian Grégorcic, followed by the theatrical adaptation of Guy Fontaine’s Mémoires de Jean Olender, mineur de fond, brought forward stories of labor, solidarity, exile and transmission.
For many visitors, this history still resonates deeply with the territory. Beginning in 1947, the Agecroft estate, located near the Château, welcomed families of miners from the Houillères du Nord–Pas-de-Calais who came to stay in La Napoule. A discreet memory, yet one deeply rooted in local history.
For one afternoon, the Château once again became a place where these voices could circulate.
Listening to the Place Differently
A few days later, composer and sound artist Simon Leoza in turn took over the Château for a performance-meeting centered on the site’s sonic memory.
Through a sensitive exploration of the Château, the artist invited visitors to reflect on the ways sounds inhabit a place and alter our perception of it.
Between presentation, performance and conversation with visitors, the event extended the questions of memory and presence already explored through previous programs. Some traces remain in images or stories; others persist in echoes, rhythms and the more diffuse sensations a place carries within itself.
CASA CINE: Writing, Composing, Imagining
Since May 6, the Château has also been hosting the new edition of the CASA CINE residency, dedicated to screenwriting and musical composition for film.
The program supports first- and second-feature film projects across fiction, documentary and animation.
Over several weeks, writers, composers and mentors from different backgrounds share their research and develop their projects within the Château. Through working sessions, exchanges and artistic mentorship, the residency becomes a temporary space for shaping future narratives.
Only a few kilometers away from the Cannes Film Festival, this cinematic presence at the Château echoes, in a way, the archives of past decades. But here, these are no longer images already produced: the Château now welcomes stories before they appear on screen. Film projects, screenplays and compositions that each artist develops over several weeks of work and transmission.
The projects developed during the residency will be presented during a pitching session organized as part of the Cannes Film Festival.
Discover this edition’s selected writers, composers and mentors:
What Will Continue to Resonate This Month
The month of May will continue at the Château with several events open to the public.
On May 25, Château en musique will present an evening dedicated to film music with the ensemble Les Claptuors and singer Laurie Jauffret, in the exceptional setting of the Château gardens.
On May 31, the festival Vivons les mots ! will take over different spaces across the site with a program bringing together theatre, music, storytelling and cinema for audiences of all ages.
More ways, once again, for voices, stories and imaginations to circulate through a place that continues, over time, to welcome living forms of creation.
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