Sundays and Cybele
Serge Bourguignon · 1962
Sundays and Cybele (1962), directed by Serge Bourguignon, follows Pierre, a psychologically wounded French Indochina War veteran, and Cybèle, an eleven-year-old girl abandoned by her family and confined to a Parisian boarding school. Their Sunday meetings in Ville-d’Avray form a fragile, wordless bond — tender, unorthodox, and ultimately unsustainable. Shot by Henri Decaë and scored by Maurice Jarre, the film avoids exposition and moral framing, trusting gesture, rhythm and absence to convey grief, legibility and the limits of care. It won the 1963 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.