Like a letter addressed to bittersweet, thorny stability, À pied d’œuvre (winner of Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival) begins with a gesture that has been voiced millions of times: one day I’ll leave everything behind, one day I’ll be free. But this successful photographer takes the phrase literally and sets out in search of his freedom: writing. Paul gives up comfort, embraces precarity, and takes a job on a construction site — a guarantee that he will have the time to devote himself to his next novel.