François Truffaut’s daughter is a Berkeley resident since 1978

French New Wave director François Truffaut and his daughter Laura Truffaut, now a Berkeley resident, on the set of his 1970 film “The Wild Child.” Credit: Pierre Zucca

Laura Truffaut’s path from Paris to Berkeley was paved by a ribbon of celluloid.

In the spring of 1978, looking for a California experience, the 19-year-old reached out to Tom Luddy, the director and curator of the Pacific Film Archive and a friend of her father, the legendary French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut.

“I actually thought he taught in the film department” at UC Berkeley, she said in a recent conversation at BAMPFA, where she’ll be returning regularly in the coming weeks to introduce and lead post-screening conversations for nine of her father’s films.

Laura Truffaut on François Truffaut

What: Screening of nine Truffaut films

Where: BAMPFA, 2155 Center St., Berkeley

Details: The series runs from “The 400 Blows” on Saturday, Jan. 17, through “Confidentially Yours” on Feb. 28. See BAMPFA’s website for tickets (gallery admission included with purchase).

Luddy responded with an application for International House and a schedule for UC Berkeley’s summer session. The first part of the plan worked fine, but she was “too late to take summer classes, though I audited a few,” she recalled. “I got a notebook and walked down every evening to see films at the PFA. In my Paris bedroom I still have the calendars on the wall. There was a good film noir series and a Robert Ryan retrospective.”

The summer was a pivotal experience. Truffaut met her future husband, Stephen Wong, who worked at the PFA, and by the following year she was back in Berkeley, enrolled at Cal. She eventually earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature.

François and Laura Truffaut on the set of “Love On The Run” (1978). Credit: Dominique Le Rigoleur

A Berkeley resident ever since, she and Wong raised three daughters who all graduated from Ecole Bilingue (two of whom, journalist Olivia Truffaut-Wong and festival programmer Celeste Truffaut-Wong, went on to work in film-related positions).

During those early years before her father’s death in 1984 at the age of 52, she stayed in close touch with his films. When he came to the Bay Area with Catherine Deneuve in 1980 to present “The Last Metro,” one of his most commercially successful films, “I took them to the PFA to see a Fritz Lang film,” she said.

Laura Truffaut as a bride in her father’s film “Small Change” (1975). Credit: Hélène Jeanbrau

“Already in the 1980s the PFA was famous for bringing directors in. Werner Herzog would come once a year and he would take all those questions. I was always struck by how different the questions were from French audiences. People here would ask about the meaning of something, and he’d get mad, though he’d often eventually give an answer.”

Growing up, Truffaut often spent time on the sets where her father was filming, experiences that she plans to draw on for some of the PFA introductions. It was the best way to spend time with him as he was fully immersed in filmmaking. Even after she’d moved to Berkeley on trips back to France, she’d visit him while he was working.

“Confidentially Yours,” his last film, gave Truffaut a chance to return to his beloved black and white. “Moving to color he felt that films were losing something, that color posed as many programs as it solved and became too much like television,” she said.

Shot largely in an abandoned medical clinic that was repurposed to serve as several different locations, including a luxury hotel, real estate agency and police station, the set was designed for black and white film, with a lot of shades of brown and yellow,” Truffaut recalled.

“The funny thing is the directors of the New Wave worked in exteriors. ‘Jules and Jim’ was filmed in a very small house with almost no space for the camera. They didn’t want to work in studios with artificial sound and light. But ironically, as time progressed, when my father worked on location, he found spaces that could be used for any number of sets for the sake of efficiency.”

François Truffaut wraps his arms around his daughter on the set of “The Wild Child.” Credit: Pierre Zucca

Truffaut describes herself as a typical Berkeleyan. She tutors French, enjoys the city’s cultural amenities, and probably sees more movies than the average citizen. The cinema-centric part of her life has continued to reverberate. Her introduction at last summer’s PFA screening of “The 400 Blows” was so well received that it sparked the idea of the “Laura Truffaut on François Truffaut” series, according to A.J. Fox, BAMPFA’s spokesperson.

Her relationship with the institution that first welcomed her to Berkeley has remained strong, even as the city’s once teeming film options have dwindled.

“It’s been awful to see all our theaters close,” she said. “I’m lucky to live close to the Elmwood, and it’s wonderful the PFA is prospering. I love the audience here. There’s a nice mix of ages, with students and older regulars. It’s rare, and makes a big difference in how you perceive a movie.”

François Truffaut’s daughter is a Berkeley resident since 1978

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