Guémené-sur-Scorff, with 1,000 inhabitants, has a small town cinema where everyone meets. And then, there is its champion reality: a hall that wins labels from the National Cinema Center (CNC) and impresses film lovers. In 2026, the public organization’s verdict came, and it is flattering: 16/20 ». A score that propels the establishment among the “very good students” in France. A nice reward for its 100th anniversary. Among a hundred Breton establishments, the Ciné Roch would not only be the oldest, but also one of the ten most rewarded: four Art and Essay labels out of five. “It’s quite exceptional for a town like ours,” smiles Laurent Hervé, the president. “Since 2014, we have obtained the labels Research and Discovery, Youth Audience, Heritage and Repertoire, Short Film. Only the ’15-25 years’ badge is missing for a clean sweep.” Guémené-sur-Scorff is the second smallest town in France to display such a pedigree.
60% of Art and Essay films. In 2025, almost 60% of films were classified as Art and Essay. This earned a subsidy of 14,000 €. Beyond the economic aspect, the president sees a way to “diversify the offer and make discover another cinema, other than big blockbusters”. He even specifies: “We have screened seven days a week for fifty years. If it weren’t eclectic, we would be turning in circles”.
For the team of volunteers who run the reels, these labels are a bit like their Palme d’Or. Sylviane, faithful for seven years, has seen the audience change its focus. Today, viewers no longer just come from the area: “We have regulars who come from Lorient, and sometimes even from Nantes. In 2025, we were the only ones in Brittany to screen ‘Jardin d’été’ by Shinji Sômai. And it worked, since the room was almost full for a Japanese author film”.
“It looks like a cinema from the Latin Quarter”. The real consecration, however, does not come from Paris, but from a neighbor. Alain Masson, a film critic for Positif, has his summer quarters in Persquen. The man, who has frequented the greatest festivals in the world, fell in love with the Guémené screen and wrote about his love in the reference magazine in 2015. For him, the Ciné Roch is a “nugget of intelligence” in front of the programs of the big complexes. “I have been to hundreds of cinemas, but only two are engraved in my heart: the Studio Rivoli in Paris, which no longer exists, and the one in Guémené-sur-Scorff!”
He applauds the modernity of the projection, and above all, the audacity of the program. “The programming is rich, we change it every day. The Parisian that I am would never have thought that I would see Danish auteur films in their original version in Central Brittany”. The former columnist doesn’t beat around the bush: “It looks like a cinema from the Latin Quarter in Paris. An exceptional cinema in the middle of the countryside. When I see Guémené-sur-Scorff, I think that suburbanites are more to be pitied than country dwellers”.
