Legacy of '68: Maydays (Grands soirs et petits matins)

“What’s important is that the action took place, at a time when everybody judged it to be unthinkable. If it took place, then it can happen again… ” —Jean-Paul Sartre (1968)

Maydays is William Klein’s dramatic chronicle of demonstrations at the Sorbonne in May 1968. The extraordinary events seen there magnify the moment when students, militants, union activists, workers, housewives, store owners, immigrants, school-children, pensioners, repentant bosses, and angry young men and women of every type and political tendency spilled into the streets to raise their voices across Paris. Conveying a visceral feeling of the protests as they unfolded, Klein’s hand-held camera frames scenes of rising collective power and revolution throughout the month of May. 1978, France, HD cam, 98 minutes.

“They were in the process of upturning their government, and they almost succeeded.”
—William Klein