Citizen Boissel

Forefather of socialism

It all starts when a student preparing her Ph.D in History comes to consult the town archives and hears about a peculiar individual who thinks he is François Boissel, a revolutionary writer of the 18th century, the forgotten forefather of socialism who was the forerunner of Babeuf and Saint-Simon. Intrigued by this curious person who personifies the very subject of her thesis, she decides to meet him to uncover the hoax. She rapidly becomes impressed by him. Her amused curiosity at the beginning slowly gives way to a fascination for this man whose thinking seems at once imprisoned in the past and yet astonishingly modern. She is left with a strange feeling of a rupture in space and time.

Who exactly has she met ? The village idiot, an eccentric artist, a great story-teller, a fascinating descendant, a reincarnation or a ghost ?