The Story of a Three Day Pass

France/1968—directed by Melvin Van Peebles | 87 min.

Unable to break into a segregated Hollywood, Melvin Van Peebles decamped to France, taught himself the language, and wrote novels in French, one of which would be the basis for his stylistically innovative feature debut, The Story of a Three Day Pass.

Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a three-day leave and heads to Paris, where he finds whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)–but what happens when his furlough is over?

Channeling the brash exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles explores the psychology of a relationship while examining France’s contradictory attitudes about race, all in a film that is playful and wryly subversive; it laid the foundation for the cinematic revolution he unleashed three years later with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Restoration supervised by Mario Van Peebles. In English and French with English subtitles.

“A New Wave classic and one of the great American films of the era.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker