Jean-Jacques Beineix's Le Chien de Monsieur Michel (1977)

Jean-Jacques Beineix made this humorous fifteen-minute film, his first, four years before his next, which is his first feature Diva. Monsieur Michel (Yves Afonso) tells the local butcher (Jean-Pierre Sentier) that he needs some scraps for his dog, and the butcher obliges. But then Michel fries them for himself: he doesn't have a dog. And so this continues, although his neighbours are suspicious as they've never seen a dog, so to rectify this he makes frequent barking noises.

But he makes a mistake by leaving 'paw prints' on the communal stairs which infuriate the neighbours. Later he says he'd had to have the dog put down, but they club together to buy him an Alsatian, although the dog doesn't take too kindly to sharing his food. This received first prize in the 1978 Festival de Trouville, and was nominated for a César for best short.