Serge Bromberg

In the mid-1980s, Serge Bromberg started Lobster Films while still in his teens, a company devoted to the restoration and preservation of predominately silent movies by the original pioneers of the medium, including Georges Méliès and the Lumière brothers. Bromberg's love of cinema began as a child when he fell in love with the comedies of Laurel and Hardy and then the fantastical shorts of Méliès. His collection of celluloid artifacts grew considerably and when he founded Lobster Films, it was his intention to share his love for early cinema with the largest possible audience. The flamboyant Bromberg's reputation quickly spread throughout France's film community, and he was hired in 1989 by the production company Gaumont to restore one of the crowning treasures of early French cinema, Jean Vigo's "L'Atalante." Around this same time, Bromberg also coordinated the restoration of another French masterpiece, "Children of Paradise," this time working on the film's soundtrack. In 2000, a restored version of the classic fantasy adventure film "The Lost World" was released, a precursor to the classic 1933 monster movie "King Kong." He also worked on a restored version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," starring the legendary Lon Chaney as the title character, and in 2009, Bromberg's documentary "Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno" was released, chronicling his discovery of rare footage of one of the great unseen, uncompleted films of all time by the famed French director, much to the approval of cinephiles the world over.