François Truffaut's Les Mistons | The Brats | The Kids (1958)

Maurice Pons published a series of stories in 1955, out of which came Truffaut's short. Les Mistons (translated as The Brats, The Kids or The Mischief Makers) is under eighteen minutes long, and features Bernadette (Bernadette Lafont), Gérard (Gérard Blain), five pre-adolescents and the voice-over by Michel François. This short concerns five schoolboys following Bernadette as she leaves her bicycle by a tree to bathe (during which time they smell the saddle), they watch her kiss Gérard and follow the lovers to various places such as the arena in Nîmes. She later learns of his death. Elements in this film obviously predate Truffaut's later films.

Bernadette Lafont became a nouvelle vague muse, she played in Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1957) with her husband, and then in Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). She also worked with many other demanding directors, including Truffaut, Edouard Molinaro, Costa-Gavras, Louis Malle and Jean-Daniel Pollet.