Fashion photographer and sometime filmmaker Sarah Moon (“Mississippi One” & “Contre l’oubli”) teams up with cinematographer Philippe Poulet for this 100th anniversary celebration of the work of pioneering filmmakers the Lumière Brothers by giving their antiquated Cinematographe camera to 40 internationally renowned filmmakers to see what, if anything, they can come up with.

The filmmakers rise to the resultant obstructions, which are such that the shorts may be no longer than 52 seconds, with no synchronized sound, a maximum of three takes and all edits done in-camera, to varying degrees of success, with a few standout pieces such as David Lynch’s elaborately constructed mini-masterpiece and a large pile of dross.

The rest of the run-time is filled with moderately interesting Hi-8 video footage of the filmmakers setting up their shot and an interminable amount of them wanking on in response to such poorly posed questions as “Why did you agree to use the Lumière camera?”, “Why do you film?” and “Do you think cinema is mortal?”

The filmmakers had a very real and unique opportunity here to celebrate cinema and its inauspicious origins which really come through with Liv Ullman turning the camera on Sven Nykvist, Claude Lelouch parading a panorama of cameras, and John Boorman turning up on the set of “Michael Collins” or its cultural influence with Merzak Allouache “camering” in Algeria.

For the most part however the entire project feels like an opportunity wasted as the majority of the shorts seem hurried, uninspired and all too often insipid affairs with Abbas Kirostami frying an egg, Michael Haneke filming the evening news straight off of his telly, and Spike Lee capturing his infant son Satchel failing to say the word “dada” presumably out of shame.

“This is a very immodest question.”