A Paris Education (Mes Provinciales)

synopsis

Etienne (Andranic Manet), a serious and impressionable shaggy-haired young cinephile, leaves behind his steady girlfriend (Diane Rouxel) in Lyon to study film in Paris. Settling into a dingy flat with a rotating cast of roommates, he immerses himself in a bohemian world of artists, intellectuals, and fellow film geeks who excitedly share their passion for Bresson, Ford, and obscure Russian directors. It's a seemingly idyllic life of the mind - until more complicated matters of the flesh, as well as jealous creativity, intrude. Shooting in timeless black and white and interweaving references to philosophy, music, and cinema - from Pascal to Mahler to Parajanov - Jean Paul Civeyrac conjures a bittersweet ode to the heady days of student life that evokes the films of the French New Wave