FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

When movie stars come to Cannes, a Traverso is there to take pictures

- JILLIAN RAYFIELD

When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.

Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.

This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.

“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added: “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”

The Traverso family, originally from the Pied-mont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.

“The jet set from the world come to Cannes, so my great-grandfather thought it was a good idea to make some shots of everything,” Traverso said.

That included the arrival of Louis Lumière, one of the inventors of cinematography, to the train station in Cannes in 1939 to preside over what was intended to be the first film festival. But several days before the festival was supposed to begin, the remaining related events and the festival were cancelled because of the outbreak of World War II.