Lola: Mr Bongo Films

Anouk Aimée (La Dolce Vita, A Man and a Woman) gives her defining performance as Cécile, a cabaret performer and single mother. Taking the stage name Lola, she entrances Roland (Marc Michel), a young drifter. A friend of Lola since childhood, he yearns for her to return his love but she pines for her husband s return. In the present, she disports with an American sailor named Frankie (Alan Scott), who in turn is the object of a young girl's affections. The girl s name, like Lola's, is Cécile (Annie Dupeyroux). Set in Nantes over the span of a few days, this story of love stories crossing paths, of life teeming with co-incidences and missed chances conveys the spirit of the early French New Wave and the graceful cinema of Max Ophüls.

Famous for the internationally acclaimed colour musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Demy's first film was immediately recognized as a masterpiece by Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. Lola's popular success led to BAFTA nominations for Best Picture and for Best Actress in a Foreign Film (Anouk Aimée).