In the aftermath of the War France experienced the Thirty Glorious Years. Young people benefitted from this period to plunge themselves into modernity and young directors wanted to stick to this reality. In 1961 Jacques Demy tackled his favourite themes in his film 'Lola': chance: love and single mothers. Anouk Aimé plays a fiendish cabaret bar girl in this film full of a new poetic language.

**The artist: Raymond Cauchetier**

Raymond Cauchetier, who was born in 1920, took up photography by chance in Saigon at the age of 31 years old. Whilst in the Air Force he was a press officer in Indochina, however his department lacked a qualified photographer. He bought himself a Rolleiflex and whenever possible captured images of a world at war. His photos had considerable impact. Some of them have been published internationally. In 1956, when he photographed the temples at Angkor, the director Marcel Camus invited him to photograph scenes from his film 'Mort en fraude', being filmed in Cambodia. So his prestigious career began as a movie stills photographer at this unforgettable moment, the birth of the French New Wave. He collaborated with several of the world’s greatest directors, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville François Truffaut, Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy.etc. Until this period, cinema photographs were lacking in creativity. Raymond Cauchetier, who was hooked on the cult of New Wave, reinvented set photography. He chose to distance himself from a fetichized image of cinema and to show cinema being 'made'. He took his photos before, during or after the shooting of the scene. He also showed backstage scenes including the production side and the technicians at work. He photographed the reality of the profession foractors who were getting ready and directors who were either being negative or exulting.