This recently discovered film by actor/filmmaker Pierre Clémenti records the tumultuous period leading up to May 1968 and its aftermath. Clémenti’s psychedelic visual style uses filters and superimposed images to create a manifesto for “permanent revolution,” “spontaneous creation,” and “poetry in the streets.” Like the Warhol Factory, Clémenti and his friends were interested in an expanded notion of art; here we see their band Les Fabuleux Loukoms (later called Les jeunes rebelles) practicing, together with other activities that form an important document of the period and a portrait of key figures in Zanzibar Films.

Filmmaker Philippe Garrel has always discussed the importance of painting for his cinema and, specifically, the painting of his longtime friend Frédéric Pardo. In this film, Pardo documents the Garrel inner circle in Morocco in 1968 on the set of Le lit de la vierge. While the stars of the Garrel film were Pierre Clémenti and Zouzou, here in Pardo’s behind-the-scenes view it is Garrel’s peripheral actors who take center stage: Pierre-Richard Bré, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Babette Lamy, and above all, the luminous Tina Aumont. The Zanzibar equivalent of The Chelsea Girls, Pardo’s home movie is a mystical, life-affirming celebration.