Summary: French New Wave Cinema

New Wave films are also known as La Nouvelle Vague. It is a diverse group of French fictional films made in the late 1950s and 1960s in reaction of the new filmmakers to the commercial scripted film products of French film industry.

This film style is characterized by a Cinema Verite. Cinema Verite is a type of style of documentary filmmaking developed in France during the early 1960s whose aim was to capture the events as they happened.

In French New Wave, the filmmakers have more freedom in experimenting in terms of shots, lighting and even editing. It is a style with the use of the jump cut, the hand-held camera, non-linear storytelling, and the use of portable and lighting system. Cameras follow the characters wherever they go.

The famous French New Wave directors are Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette.

The innovative film movement would last until the mid-1960s and remain an important influence on later filmmaking.