Let's go back to 1969. One evening, when Serge Bromberg is 8, his father comes home with a Super-8 projector and a Chaplin film, A Night in the Show. This marks the beginning of a crazy passion for old movies, which he is fortunately not cured of.

 

In 1985, following his passion but without any precise idea in mind, he creates his company, Lobster, taking accomplice Eric Lange with him on a quest for the Holy Grail. Their latest important discovery, found in a piece of antique furniture and therefore named A Treasure in a Cupboard, is historic: 98 films made prior to 1905, and among them 17 films by Georges Méliès thought to be lost!

Today, thanks to their research and preservation work, as well as to the purchase of important French and American catalogs, the Lobster collection represents some 20,000 rare, unknown, and amazing films plus classics in black and white or colour.

 

Very quickly, Lobster had to develop skills in the preservation field to restore the works in its collection. In addition, in 1989 Gaumont asked Lobster to restore the soundtrack of Jean Vigo's masterpiece, L'Atalante. In 1990 the sound restoration of Les Enfants du Paradis followed, supervised by director Marcel Carné himself. Since these orders our know-how has regularly been used by private companies or film libraries to bring cinema treasures back to life, thus making Lobster a major player in the film restoration field.

 

In 1994 Lobster reached a new stage when French Culture Channel Arte ordered a weekly program on slapstick, opening the way to the production of other TV programs, and not only based on old archive films. Cartoon Factory, two silent serials (A Flight around the World and A Woman in Grey), Never Have Kids and Thema evenings about the Marx Brothers or gag films followed, again for Arte.

 

But since 1995 Lobster has mainly produced Cellulo, a 26' program broadcast daily on French Education Channel La Cinquieme, in which Serge Bromberg himself presents animated films covering all genres and periods.

Lobster's production activity has also recently diversified by turning towards advertising and corporate films.