Alexandre Promio

Jean Alexandre Louis Promio (9 July 1868 – 24 December 1926) was a French cinematographer and director. He is mentioned as a pioneer in film and was the director of Sweden's first newsreel, featuring King Oscar II's arrival at the General Art and Industrial Exposition on 15 May 1897. Chicago, grande roue, Promio's 1896 film of the original Ferris Wheel, is one of the earliest films of Chicago. Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896) is most likely the first film to be made with a moving camera.

Alexandre Promio came from an Italian family that moved to France and resided in Lyon. During his time as an assistant to an optician in Lyon, he witnessed the first presentation of the medium of moving pictures cinematograph. Promio was interested in the art of photography, and in March 1896 left his work at the optician to start working for Auguste and Louis Lumière. He soon became head of the film unit and got the responsibility for the education of the first cinematograph-operators.

His first assignment was to present and market the new medium of film worldwide. Promio visited several cities between April 1896 and September 1897. He first went to Madrid, where he demonstrated moving pictures on 13 May 1896. On 7 July he did a film demonstration for the Tsar Nikolaj II of Russia and the empress of Saint Petersburg, after that he visited England, Germany and Hungary. In September 1896, he arrived in the US, and filmed the first films of Chicago. In Italy, he on 25 October 1896 filmed the city of Venice from a Gondola.

This happened in Stockholm as well when he visited for two weeks during the summer of 1897 to show Lumières invention at the General Art and Industrial Exposition of Stockholm. At one point Promio also educated Sweden's first film photographer Ernest Florman who himself had contributed with several films for the exhibition. On 15 May 1897 Promio filmed the first ever Swedish newsreel film which showed the King Oscar II along with the crown prince Gustaf V as they arrived at the exhibition area at Djurgården. The king got to see the film the same day. While in Sweden Promio also made Sweden's first feature film, Slagsmål i Gamla Stockholm, which was one minute long.