Montreuil: The Suburb That Invented Hollywood

Before Hollywood, before Cinecittà, before anywhere — there was Montreuil. Ask a Parisian where they want to live right now and a surprising number will say this neighbourhood just east of the city. I came to find out why — and ended up discovering the world’s first film studios, streets that feel like North Africa, Mali women cooking on the street, and neighbourhood squares with a soul the rest of Paris has mostly lost. I’d only ever known Montreuil as a five-minute walk: the station to Bruno and Claudia’s dance school at La Phoenix. That corridor was my entire map — and what a map it is. Raw, real, full of edge. Then a summer performance in a park whispered that another Montreuil exists entirely: leafy, sought-after, quietly posh. That one is for another day. Today we follow the edge. We find the film history. And we glimpse just enough of the other side to know we’ll be back. Nomad: The World Is My Beat — Series 5