The String

Amel is a young photographer. When she loses her husband, her life changes. Encouraged by her father-in-law, she takes a taste of life by photographing street boys. Without fear of being scandalous, she makes the choice to look at men as men look at women.

A middle-aged writer is looking for a quiet retreat; a slightly younger female estate agent gives him details of a house a close to Venice.

Born at the turn of the century in a village's butcher shop, Jeanne Lavaur dreams of becoming a countess. Inspired by the fearless Céleste and guided by her love for Guillaume de Barante, Jeanne’s journey carries her from the vibrant Paris of the Golden Twenties through the turmoil of two world wars. As her life intertwines with the great upheavals of the 20th century, she rises as a fiercely free woman, determined to never let anyone else define who she is meant to be.

Yacine lives with his brother Jamel in a cramped Parisian apartment. He works as a motorcycle courier, although he is also a brilliant political science student. When a delivery job takes him to the home of his professor Richard Artaud, his life is thrown off course. Both the professor and his wife, an actress, show an extraordinary, if disturbingly paternalistic interest in him. Shortly thereafter, the professor suddenly dies and Yacine makes a strange confession to Eléonore: "I am not dead"