Set in the summer of 1968 with the Paris riots as its backdrop, The Dreamers tells the story of an encounter between a young American and a French duo. This making-of documentary shows Bertolucci at work and explores the factual background of the film's events using archive and key witnesses from the time.

Valerio Bonelli, first assistant editor of The Dreamers, talks to BBC Four about working with Bernardo Bertolucci.

BBC Four: The Dreamers is set in Paris in 1968, focusing on that year’s student riots and on the controversial dismissal of Henri Langlois from the Cinémathèque. Were any events recreated at the authentic locations?
Valerio Bonelli: The first 10 minutes take place in front of the Cinémathèque itself. In fact, the same people who made famous speeches during the demonstrations outside the cinema – French actors Jean-Pierre Kalfon and Jean-Pierre Léaud – even appear in the film. They read the same speeches they gave in 1968. Bernardo wanted them to re-enact the whole thing.

BBC Four: Much of The Dreamers takes place in one apartment block...
VB: Yes, about 80% of the film. It's an old building that had been left abandoned for almost 15 years and was previously home to the Egyptian Embassy I think. Actually, we took over the whole building. On the first floor there was the production office and reception, we had the editing rooms on the second floor, the third floor was the set and on the fourth floor were the changing rooms and the costume department. It was a bit like the film itself – the kids lock themselves away in the house and we did the same thing. We all locked ourselves in this marvellous dream!

BBC Four: Does the film incorporate any original footage from the 1960s?
VB: That opening sequence is intercut with archive material from the actual event. In another scene, newsreel footage can be seen playing on a television in a shop display. For the film’s climax, which depicts the riots between the students and the police, Bernardo decided to shoot the entire episode with his own cameras. The result is quite excellent.

BBC Four: How difficult was it to stage the riots?
VB: Well, I don’t think anyone has shot a scene like that in the centre of Paris for decades. It's very hard to get permission to film something like that, what with the fire and the explosions! The only way to get permission was to shoot on the 15 August. In the middle of the summer no one is around. The city’s deserted because everyone is at the beach.

The crew set up at around six in the evening and finished at five the next day. It was really exciting to see it. We were running three cameras amid the police charging the students. When we saw the rushes for that scene we thought it would have been better to have had more policemen so in post-production we kind of duplicated some of them. That was probably the only real special effect we had in the film.

BBC Four: The first cuts of some of Bertolucci’s earlier films, such as 1900, were famously long. How about The Dreamers?
VB: The first cut was 2h 10m and now the film is about 1h 53m. In terms of losing entire scenes, we only took out one, which wasn’t really important. This is a very simple story compared to some of the others that Bertolucci has done, such as The Last Emperor. It’s less epic, more intimate.