The Story of a Three Day Pass

In the late ‘60s, pioneering Black director Melvin Van Peebles, stymied by the segregation of Hollywood, followed the path of other African-American artists (Richard Wright, James Baldwin) and relocated to Paris. He turned a novel he wrote in French (La permission) into his innovative debut. On a three-day leave, Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France heads to Paris and a whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger). “Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that is playful, sarcastic, and stingingly subversive by turns, and that laid the foundation for the scorched-earth cinematic revolution he would unleash just a few years later with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” (Janus Films)“The movie reflects the stylistic variety and the freewheeling innovation of the French New Wave. It’s among the great American films of the sixties…that display the global reach of that Paris-centered movement.” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker)“Just as Baird is sustained by his self-mockery, this tender and witty film is saved from sentimentality by its satirical edge.” (LA Times)New 4K restoration by IndieCollect in consultation with Mario Van Peebles, with support from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

more info at this website: www.janusfilms.com/films/2025

In French & English

Subtitled