The teenage boy, Antoine Doinel lives unhappily with his mother and stepfather in Paris. The adults have a cold attitude toward Antoine, ignoring him at home and in school. Antoine frequently runs away from both places. Instead, he meets friends and watches films at the cinema. The longing for freedom becomes too strong and he decides to steal a typewriter to finance his final ‘escape’. Unfortunately, Antoine is caught. The father angrily turns Antoine over to the police, who lock the boy up with hardened criminals. François Truffaut’s debut feature-film film was inspired by his own troubled childhood. He was sentenced to juvenile prison when he was 15 years old. Truffaut explains, “I know what I’m telling about. I have seen police stations with prostitutes, the transport of prisoners, the custody and questioning session and cells. It is nothing I want to go more into detail about, but I’ve seen worse things than I show in the film.” In 1959 François Truffaut’s debut film Les quatre cents coups was the first one made in the Nouvelle Vague film style. Truffaut’s Les quatre cents coups won the Best Film Award in Cannes 1959.