Two in the Wave

Two in the Wave is the story of a friendship and of a break-up. Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930; Francois Truffaut two years later. Love of movies brings them together. They write in the same magazines, Cahiers du Cinema and Arts. When the younger of the two becomes a filmmaker with Les 400 coups (The 400 Blows), which triumphs in Cannes in 1959, he helps his older friend shift to directing, offering him a screenplay which already has a title, A bout de souffle (Breathless). Through the 1960s the two loyally support each other. History and politics separate them in 1968 and afterwards - when Godard plunges into radical politics but Truffaut continues his career as before. Between the two of them, the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud is torn like a child caught between two separated and warring parents. Their friendship and their break-up embody the story of French cinema.

Exploring the letters, personal archives and films of the two New Wave directors, Two in the Wave takes us back to a prodigious decade that transformed the world of cinema.