Robert Bober

The documentary filmmaker Robert Bober revisits the world of his great-grandfather, who left Poland to live in the modern and cosmopolitan city of Vienna, home to intellectuals such as Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and Arthur Schnitzler, on the eve of the National Socialist regime's rise to power, which put an end to the city's status as Europe's cultural capital. What emerges is an emotionally powerful double portrait that reveals a search for identity with universal resonance.

They meet in »Le Vieux Belleville«: Minelle, the singer, or Robert Bober, the writer, once Truffaut's assistant director. Basque anarchist Lucio is also a regular at the little restaurant, where time seems to have stood still. This place and the memories of the regulars and their songs which tell of love and struggle are the manifestation of the soul of Belleville, but also of old Paris.