Inventor and cinema pioneer Ambroise-François Parnaland (1854–1913) founded the Parnaland Frères company in April 1895. He filed his first patent, on February 25, 1896, for a cinematographic device using non-perforated 35mm film: the “Photothéagraphe”. On March 5, 1896, he filed another patent for the “Kinébléposcope” viewer – a variant of Georges Demenÿ’s Phonoscope. The reversible 35mm camera/projector, with perforated film, described in Parnaland’s patent of May 6, 1896, is of greater interest due to some novel innovations: an escapement movement drives a 35mm film strip, by means of an eyelet-reinforced perforation, centered between each frame, and “embossings” at left and right edges (two per frame). These embossings are driven by two mechanical feeders. No extant samples of this film have yet been unearthed.

A new patent, registered on June 9, 1896 (with several successive additions), enabled Parnaland to offer a high-performance camera, with an original mechanism, using film with several types of perforation, driven by spring-loaded “blades” – this new advancement mechanism, unique to the Parnaland’s system, was far gentler on the film stock than either the Edison or Lumière systems.

In June 1898, Doctor Eugène-Louis Doyen asked Parnaland, among others, to record some of his groundbreaking surgical procedures. Six different operations were subsequently filmed by Parnaland (using his own camera) and Clément-Maurice [Gratioulet] (1853 –1933) (with a Lumière Cinématographe). Doyen’s archive contains two negatives: one with round Lumière perforations; the other with two lateral rectangular Parnaland perforations. Parnaland, assuming he owned films made with his camera, decided to sell some of the Doyen footage in Edison 35mm format to the distributors Pathé, Radiguet and Massiot, and Georges Mendel. Films of Dr Doyen’s operations were subsequently exhibited by fairground stallholders, which caused a scandal in medical circles. The surgeon filed a complaint against Parnaland, who was ordered to pay compensation to Doyen. After these events, the two men broke off their collaboration. Yet, a 35mm camera, specially built by Parnaland for Doyen, along with the sole-surviving example of an amateur 17.5mm film camera model, survive to the present day in the preserve of Dr Doyen’s family. Curiously, Doyen registered a patent for this 17.5mm camera on January 29, 1900, even though it was clearly based on the Parnaland system.

Despite these legal headwinds, the Parnaland company continued, and succeeded in selling its machines to various distributors – the hybrid nature of the system (a variety of perforation types) was appreciated in the trade. Radiguet and Massiot announced that Parnaland projectors came with spring-loaded blades: “[allowing] two strips of different width, Lumière or Edison, to be run through, one after the other, without any modification to the device … [B]y simply adjusting the length of the connecting rod, we can accommodate special widths for strips that we would be well advised to keep for ourselves”.

Parnaland also took part in the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre project with Clément-Maurice. This dual-purpose camera, also used for Doctor Doyen’s operations, filmed L’Enfant prodigue (1900), with Félicia Mallet, and Ma Cousine (1900), with Gabrielle Rejane, with lateral perforations, and others with central perforations.

In 1897, Parnaland started to film productions of his own, specifically targeting fairground audiences. In 1904, he partnered with photographer Emmanuel Ventujol, a former operator with the Lumière brothers, to continue producing films – film catalogs were published. In 1907, having abandoned the Parnaland format, Ambroise-François Parnaland co-founded the new company Eclair, alongside Charles Jourjon. But after a few months, Parnaland was dismissed and withdrew from Eclair. In 1910, Parnaland returned to manufacturing cinematographic equipment, but, by this time, his patents had become outdated and commercial success did not follow.