Paris Education (A)

Filled with expectations, Etienne moves to Paris from Lyon to study film directing at the Sorbonne. He leaves behind his girlfriend Lucie, promising to call her regularly via Skype. On his course he meets Jean-Noël and Mathias, they too have come to the metropolis from smaller cities and share his passion for cinema. Together they discuss the cinematic canon, read texts by Flaubert and Pasolini, and listen to Bach and Mahler. Jean-Noël proves to be an agreeable friend who tries to strengthen Etienne’s fragile self-confidence; Mathias, on the other hand, often comes across as stern, aloof and mysterious. Fond of arguing, he has a habit of disappearing for weeks on end without the others knowing where he is. Nobody gets to see his student film, either. Etienne is particularly crestfallen when he discovers by chance that Mathias shares a secret with Annabelle, an idealistic young woman who lives in Etienne’s shared flat and with whom he is secretly in love.

Jean Paul Civeyrac’s tenderly melancholic black-and-white study of these young people’s encounter with art and life is at the same time a declaration of love for classic cinema and the city of Paris.

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