“As individual as Godard or Rohmer, Jacques Demy was one of the most distinctive filmmakers to emerge from the French New Wave in the late 50s and early 60s. Indeed, the films he made up until his untimely death in 1990 constitute one of the most extraordinary bodies of work of that era. If only for his most famous and best-loved movie – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with its dialogue set to music and sung from bauble-bright start to bittersweet end – Demy would deserve a prominent place in the film history books, though his achievement is in fact far greater than simply having broadened the boundaries of the musical genre. Right from the opening of his first feature Lola, it was apparent that here was a film-maker with a very special style – indeed, with a very particular worldview. More than most, Demy was able to see an enchanting magic in everyday life. He turned the Atlantic coastal towns of his early years into exquisitely coloured realms of romantic longing and loss, with fateful encounters experienced with a forthright intensity reminiscent of fairytale or myth. Few other directors have been as eloquent in evoking the joyful ecstasy of the onset of love – or the poignant force of disappointment and separation, remembrance and resignation.” – Geoff Andrew