The archives of French cinema hold many secrets, but none as mysterious as the lost reel of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.
It was 1964 when Catherine Deneuve, just twenty-one, lit up the screen as Geneviève Emery in Jacques Demy’s bold, color-saturated musical. The film became a global sensation, and Deneuve—ethereal, poised, luminous—was suddenly a name whispered in every serious film circle from Paris to New York.
But there was something about that film that no one ever talked about. Something even Deneuve herself never acknowledged.
Something hidden.
In 2025, an intern named Jules working at the Cinémathèque Française stumbled upon an unmarked canister in the basement vault. Dusty, rusting, mislabeled. Curious, he threaded it into an old Steenbeck editing machine.
The screen flickered to life.
The footage was unmistakable: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. But not the version the world knew.
This version was… different.
The colors were more saturated. The music darker. The dialogue subtly altered. And then—there she was. Catherine Deneuve, in a scene no one had ever seen before. Not even mentioned in scripts, storyboards, or director’s notes.
In the scene, Geneviève sits alone in a backroom of the umbrella shop. The camera lingers too long. Her eyes dart toward something off-screen. She whispers in a voice not quite hers:
“He said they’d come for me before the last reel.”
Then—cut to black.
Jules sat frozen. He replayed the scene. Again. Again.
It didn’t make sense. Was it a rehearsal take? An abandoned subplot? Why was it hidden?
The next day, Jules brought it to his supervisor. But when they returned, the reel was gone. So was the machine. So was the vault key.
A week later, Jules went missing.
Word spread quietly through preservation circles. Whispered warnings, cryptic emails: Don’t mention the lost scene. Don’t ask about Deneuve.
Of course, this only intensified curiosity. A retired film professor from Lyon, Colette Moreau, wrote an anonymous blog post about having once seen a second cut of Les Parapluies—screened only once, at a private Cannes midnight showing in 1965. In it, she claimed, Deneuve’s character becomes “trapped between timelines,” reliving the same rainy afternoon in Cherbourg over and over, as if caught in a loop.
“Not performance,” she wrote. “Possession.”
The post was deleted within hours. Her account—wiped.
In Paris, a curious journalist named Marc Delarue began investigating. What he uncovered shocked him.
Deneuve had refused all retrospective screenings of the film for over five decades. No director’s commentary. No memoir chapters dedicated to it. For a film that launched her into international stardom, her silence was conspicuous.
Marc requested an interview. His fourth request was unexpectedly accepted.
She was 81 now. Still radiant, her presence dignified and quiet. They met at her home in Paris, walls lined with paintings, not a film poster in sight.
He asked about the film. About Demy. About that scene.
She studied him for a long moment. Then finally said:
“Do you believe a role can… imprint itself on the soul?”
Marc hesitated. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She smiled faintly. “Neither was I. At first.”
She stood and crossed to a lacquered cabinet. From inside, she withdrew a single strip of film—yellowed, brittle. She held it up to the window. Light filtered through.
“I don’t remember filming this scene,” she whispered. “But I dream of it. Always that line: He said they’d come for me before the last reel. I never knew who ‘he’ was. Until years later.”
Marc’s pulse quickened. “Who was he?”
Deneuve turned slowly.
“Jacques,” she said. “But not the Jacques you knew.”
Marc frowned. “You mean Demy?”
“No,” she said. “The other one. The one behind the camera. The real director.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“You’re talking about a spirit?”
“Not quite,” she said. “He was something older. Something that fed on repetition. Reels. Roles. Loops. Every actress in that film had dreams after. Hallucinations. Visions. Some went mad. One died in 1972—stabbed herself in her dressing room mirror. Said she could still hear the soundtrack playing behind her eyes.”
Marc’s hands trembled. “Why are you telling me this?”
She handed him the film strip. “Because it’s starting again. The loop is opening.”
Marc took the strip. “And this? What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Burn it,” she said. “While you still can.”
He left her apartment shaken, the strip of film tucked into his coat.
That night, curiosity overtook fear. He scanned the strip onto his computer, frame by frame.
The final frame held something peculiar.
A shot of Catherine—eyes wide, mouth open in a scream. And just behind her, a blurred figure holding a clapboard.
Zooming in, Marc gasped.
The clapboard read:
“Take 13. Scene 666. Director: J. Dorléac.”
Maurice Dorléac. Deneuve’s father.
But he had died in 1979.
Suddenly, Marc’s lights flickered. The soundtrack of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg began playing from his speakers.
Only this time, the lyrics were distorted.
“Don’t leave me in the rain… Don’t let me out again…”
The screen went black.
A single message appeared:
“The reel has begun again.”