For his French-class assignment, a high school student weaves his family history in a news story involving terrorism, and goes on to invite an Internet audience in on the resulting controversy.

On the eve of World War II four Parisians cope with the impending invasion of their city by German forces. While the French government braces for impact, the intersected lives of a young writer, a vain movie star, a French politician and a young scientist are examined as they attempt to deal with war and evade German spies.

Paris, 1960s. Momo, a resolute and independent Jewish teenager who lives with his father, a sullen and depressed man, in a working-class neighborhood, develops a close friendship with Monsieur Ibrahim, an elderly Muslim who owns a small grocery store.

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.

Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.