If/Then: Paris Cafe

In Paris, in the 1930’s, a group of writers and philosophers spar over how to be—what freedom means, what desire demands, and whether the Nazi’s are becoming a threat. They eventually navigate the shock of occupation, the need to survive and the need for one’s country to survive. Today, in a studio in Brooklyn, Kath attempts to convene a panel on the Occupation. Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone Weil and Marguerite Duras participate, joined from time to time by Kath’s mother, Sal, who calls in from the nursing home. If / Then: Paris Cafe explores the danger and confusion, the comic blunders, the romantic and terrifying moves and countermoves among a few of the writers and philosophers living in Paris during the Nazi Occupation. From the calamity of another era, we grapple with the danger of forgetting.