Paris Belongs to Us
(Paris nous appartient)

Screening on Film

Directed by Jacques Rivette.
With Betty Schneider, Giani Esposito, Françoise Prévost.
France, 1960, 35mm, black & white, 140 min.
French with English subtitles.

Set in a near-deserted Paris in summer, Paris Belongs to Us—the first feature by Rivette, made with a camera borrowed from Chabrol and shot on film stock bought by Truffaut—follows a group of enthusiastic young theatrical amateurs who come together to present a production of Shakespeare’s Pericles. Little by little, sexual and political tensions develop within the group. As misfortunes begin to befall them, the actors become haunted by a vague, unseen menace with increasingly conspiratorial undertones that suggest the state of the contemporary world. Poetic in its vision and realist in its expression, Paris Belongs to Us remains one of the key works of the early Nouvelle Vague.