Claude-Jean Philippe sees the invention of cinema as the meeting of photographers and ghosts. This film chronologically follows the progress of two inventions: Joseph Plateau's discovery of the persistence of retinal images, the perfection of his phenakitiscope, and Nieppe's invention of photography. The Lumière brothers' cinematograph is the culmination of this double discovery.

Cinema owes a lot to this experimental laboratory that was the French avant-garde between 1919 and 1924. Based on this observation by Henri Langlois, Claude-Jean Philippe shows that these filmmakers (Louis Delluc, Marcel L'Herbier) accused their difference, like the impressionist group. On the other hand, at the end of the 1920s, everyone dreamed of a "pure cinema".