A Night in Versailles

Arnaud, who lives in Versailles, invites a woman from Paris to dinner. It is a first date. He has spent hours tidying the flat, rehearsing what he will say, working out every detail. Then she arrives and none of what he worked out goes as planned. Bruno Podalydès's forty-five minute first film. Almost all of it takes place in one flat and it is built on its hero's embarrassment; the harder he tries the deeper he sinks. Arnaud is played by the director's brother Denis Podalydès, and the two brothers wrote the script together. It won the César for best short film in 1993. It is the first part of a trilogy Podalydès built around the three railway stations of Versailles.