The Incorrigible Optimists Club

Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini—amateur photographer and compulsive reader—is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world—of rock 'n' roll and of the Algerian War. But as the sun sinks and the plastic players spin, Michel's concentration is not on the game, but on the huddle of men gathered in the shadows of a back room. Past the bar, behind a partly drawn c...