Forty years after its original release, Marie-Claude Treilhou’s “criminally overlooked” debut film Simone Barbes or Virtue remains vital and vivid in its depiction of a young woman’s nocturnal perambulations against the landscape of Parisian nightlife. Treilhou’s film was produced under the banner of Paul Vecchiali’s production house Les Films Diagonale, which the filmmaker and critic Serge Bozon (Mrs. Hyde, NYFF55) has characterized as “the last important school of French cinema after the New Wave.”

To mark the NYFF58 Revivals premiere of the film’s new restoration, we were honored to host Treilhou in a sprawling conversation with Bozon about the making and the enduring legacy of Simone Barbes. Special thanks to interpreter Nicholas Elliott.

Watch the conversation below, presented by HBO. Visit our NYFF58 playlist for more talks and Q&As.