Forbidden Godard, the People’s Fantomas. How French cinema was viewed in the USSR

At the end of the 1950s, Jean-Luc Godard, known among French cinematographers, harshly criticized films he didn’t like in his reviews for Cahiers du Cinema and dreamed of making a movie that had not yet been made. He envied his colleagues Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol – they had already transitioned from critics to directors and released their debuts. However, at the Cannes festival, producer Georges de Beauregard offered Godard to show how to make films – though the budget was small and the entire shooting period was only 20 days.