Festival Les Lucioles

Les Lucioles: When Digital Art Illuminates Montauban

Every summer since 2022, the Festival Les Lucioles has offered an extraordinary spectacle to the residents and visitors of Montauban. For nearly two months — from mid-July to the end of August — the city's most emblematic monuments are transformed each evening into giant screens for breathtakingly beautiful video mapping shows, entirely free and accessible to all.

The festival takes its name from these little lights that come on in the summer night: like fireflies, the luminous projections emerge at dusk to draw stories on the stone of the monuments, breathing new life into historic buildings, at the crossroads of history and contemporary digital creation.

Video Mapping: An Art That Reenchants Monuments

Video mapping — or architectural projection — is an artistic technique that involves projecting animated images onto the facades of buildings or monuments, perfectly following their relief, ornaments, and architecture. The result is spectacular: the stones seem to come alive, transform, tell stories, and explore visual universes of unexpected richness and poetry.

In Montauban, three exceptional heritage sites host these projections:

• Notre-Dame de l'Assomption Cathedral — a classical 18th-century edifice, whose imposing facade offers a perfect canvas for the most ambitious mappings.
• Ingres Bourdelle Museum — a former medieval episcopal palace, whose complex architectural volumes allow for highly sophisticated visual creations.
• Pont de Sapiac — a bridge over the Tarn river, whose stone arches and piers lend themselves to unique aquatic projections, with the reflection of images in the river water.

Every Evening, a Free Open-Air Show

The projections take place every evening from 10 PM to midnight, taking advantage of the summer night's darkness to deploy their full visual power. Access is entirely free, in line with the festival's philosophy of making it accessible to every resident of Montauban and every visitor without financial constraints.

The public gathers spontaneously in front of the illuminated monuments, creating an atmosphere of shared wonder typical of large popular festivals. Families, couples, groups of friends, or solo strollers share the same amazed and delighted gaze at these ephemeral digital works.

Sunday Evening Open-Air Cinema

In addition to the mapping shows, the Festival Les Lucioles offers an open-air cinema screening every Sunday evening. These film screenings, also free, create an additional moment of conviviality, transforming Montauban's public spaces into open-air cinemas.

The film programming mixes popular films with more unique works, in a selection accessible to all ages. These cinema evenings are one of the most festive and appreciated moments of the festival, bringing together families and film lovers under the summer stars.

A Festival Rooted in the Urban and Social Fabric

The Festival Les Lucioles embodies an ambitious vision of open-air culture: making contemporary and digital art accessible to all by occupying the public spaces and monuments that every resident knows and frequents. By making the entire city its theater, the festival contributes to a sense of belonging and pride for the people of Montauban, who see their city magnified each summer by these luminous creations.

The 4th edition in 2025 confirms the festival's place in the summer cultural calendar of Tarn-et-Garonne, with attendance steadily increasing since its inception.