A Story In Paris – Behind The Screenplay
What if every photograph you took stole someone’s soul?
In the enchanting streets of Paris, Thomas Girard has discovered something that ancient indigenous peoples always knew—cameras don’t just capture images. They capture souls.
A Story In Paris follows Thomas, a former alcoholic who works at Roubollah Lean’s wine shop by day and becomes a soul collector by night. Armed with his camera, he prowls the tourist-heavy streets of gay Paree, photographing unsuspecting Parisians and storing their stolen souls in his own version of the city’s famous catacombs.
Thomas Girard isn’t your typical Parisian. He stocks wine bottles and chats with customers to pay rent on his small flat, but his real passion lies in the shadows. While tourists snap selfies at the Eiffel Tower, Thomas is documenting something far more sinister—and he’s keeping his collection in the underground tunnels that most Parisians don’t even know exist.
The catacombs aren’t just Thomas’s hunting ground—they’re his sanctuary. Through a boarded-up entrance hidden from the public, he descends into his private world where stolen souls line the walls instead of bones.
The story was born from those perfectly imperfect moments every photographer knows. You’re trying to capture a beautiful Parisian street scene, but someone walks into your shot at the last second. Instead of deleting these “photobombed” images, what if each accidentally captured person represented something more?
In Paris, a city where locals move through their daily routines oblivious to the constant stream of tourists and cameras, these chance encounters became the foundation for Thomas’s dark obsession.
Ancient wisdom meets modern technology in Thomas’s method. Every click of his camera doesn’t just freeze a moment—it extracts something essential from his subjects. The indigenous belief that photographs steal souls wasn’t superstition; it was prophecy, waiting for the right person to understand its power.
The mood and mystery of A Story In Paris came together through carefully curated French music that channeled the story’s dark romanticism. From Charles Aznavour’s classic “La bohème” to contemporary artists like Pomme and Barbara Pravi, each track helped build the psychological landscape where Thomas operates.
The playlist became the heartbeat of the writing process, with tracks like Serge Gainsbourg’s “Baudelaire” and Françoise Hardy’s “Mon amie la rose” providing the perfect backdrop for exploring the thin line between art and obsession in the City of Light.
A Story In Paris transforms the romantic image of Paris into something far more complex and haunting. It’s a city where beauty masks darkness, where art becomes addiction, and where the most dangerous predator is the one with a camera.
Ready to discover what Thomas has collected in his underground gallery?
The complete soundtrack that shaped Thomas Girard’s world:
In case you’re interested, here’s the writing playlist created for the countless hours creating “A Story In Paris” and the tracks that put the events and mood in my head.
“A Story In Paris” writing playlist:
- Alain Goraguer – Strip Tease
- Maud Lübeck – À deux
- Chocolat – Une introduction inutilement complexe
- Maxime de Wilde – C’est quand
- Jimmy Hunt – Christian Bobin
- Lou-Adriane Cassidy – Bonsoir
- Malik Djoudi – Douleur
- Fabio Viscogliosi – Odyssée
- Château Forte – À moitié chiens
- Marion Rampal – D’autres soleils
- Laurence-Anne – Géo
- Charles Aznavour – La bohème
- Serge Gainsbourg – Baudelaire
- Maruja – The Tinker
- The Heliocentrics – Made of the Sun
- Françoise Hardy – Mon amie la rose
- Moin – Right is Alright, Wrong is to Belong
- Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp – Be Patient
- La Femme – Va
- Juniore – Je me suis fait tout petit
- Bertrand Belin – Carnaval
- Nicolas Michaux – A nouveu
- Simon Mavin – Some Days
- Françoise Hardy – Tous les garçons et les filles – Stereo Mix
- Jeane Manson – Avant de nous dire adieu
- Serge Reggiani – Il suffirait de presque rien
- Lou-Adriane Cassidy – Bonsoir
- Babx – Omaya, Pt. 3
- KCIDY – Les gens heureux dansent
- Catastrophe – Plus fort plus haut
- Gaétan Nonchalant – Les Légumes
- Mes péchés s’accumulent
- Pomme – soleil soleil
- Barbara Pravi – Voilà
- Pierre Barouh – Ce n’est que de l’eau
- Laura Cahen – Les ronces
- Nicolas Michaux – Une seconde chance
- Ensemble Contraste – Paraphrase gnossienne
Story Inspiration
I take photos walking around any city that I’m fortunate enough to visit. It’s a great pleasure for me, but like many things I do in life, I do things quickly in an effort to soak in all I can. When I take these photos, I don’t spend much time framing, searching for the correct lighting, making sure only the subject is in focus, like the old filmmaker trope always touts, I decide if need be, “I’ll fix it in post.” (Post-production – ie, afterwards).
The pattern I found when reviewing the quickly snapped photos afterwards were people that inadvertently entered the frame and photobombed my unclear efforts to snap parts of my experience.
This happened a lot in the tourist mecca that is the enchanting city of gay Paris (or gay Paree if you want to strangely spell the term).
People go about their business in the phenomenal city with little regard for tourists or photos being taken anywhere. “A Story In Paris,” Thomas Girard and his endeavours, were born shortly after.
You can learn more about the Broken English production of A Story In Paris by clicking the underlined link.
Thomas Girard works in Roubollah Lean’s Caviste shop (A Wine Merchant). He enjoys the gig, the people he interacts with and the simplicity of the task at hand. With this money he can afford rent for a small flat in the city.
His obsession, however, is in no way wine related. In fact he’s a former alcoholic, so it definitely isn’t something he prioritizes. Thomas focus is capturing the Parisian souls that overpopulate the city using his camera and placing their stolen souls in his own version of the catacombs.
The catacombs play a major role in Thomas’ life. They’re his place of solace. His connection to them goes as far as exploring them through a disused boarded up entrance that the public remain unaware of.
