In April and May the BFI is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the French New Wave. To mark the occasion, a nationwide re-release of the film that started the movement, François Truffaut's classic debut feature */The 400 Blows/*, will open in cinemas across London and nationwide on 10 April.

Dir: François Truffaut/ Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble
Cert: PG

Fifty years on from its unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival, Truffaut’s superb feature debut remains an influential landmark in the history of the cinema.

Deeply moving yet devoid of maudlin sentimentality, the film centres on Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a 13-year-old constantly in trouble - justifiably or otherwise - with his parents and teachers. Drifting into truancy and petty theft, he soon finds himself at odds with still less sympathetic figures of adult authority... Shot on the streets of Paris, the film exudes an authenticity - emotional, psychological, sociological - surely born of the semi-autobiographical story, and displays real compassion as it charts a seemingly inexorable progress towards delinquency. Great credit goes to Léaud, whose engaging but entirely uningratiating performance is a miracle of naturalism, but Truffaut was also wise in availing himself of many talents, on both sides of the camera, who would prove crucial to the development of the nouvelle vague. 

Opens 10 April 2009

    * London, BFI Southbank
    * London, Curzon Mayfair
    * London, Everyman
    * London, Barbican
    * Belfast, Queens Film Theatre
    * Bristol, Watershed
    * Edinburgh, Filmhouse
    * Irish Film Institute
    * Sheffield, Showroom

From 14 April

    * Cine Lumiere, London

From 17 April

    * London, Renoir Cinema

From 19 April

    * Richmond, Curzon

From 8 May

    * Bradford, National Media Museum
    * Liverpool, Picturehouse at FACT

From 15 May

    * Canterbury, The Gulbenkian Cinema
 

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