L'Auberge Espagnole looks at one of contemporary French cinema's most influential and innovative youth films. examines its themes of cultural diversity, celebrates its construction of a European transnational identity, analyzes its youthful visual and structural 'newness', and charts its production, distribution, and reception history.

Ben McCann is Associate Professor of French Studies at the University of Adelaide. He is the co-editor of Michael Haneke: Europe Utopia (Columbia UP, 2011) and Framing French Culture (Adelaide UP, 2015) and the author of Ripping Open the Set: French Film Design, 1930-1939 (Peter Lang, 2013), Le Jour se lève (I.B. Tauris, 2013), and Julien Duvivier (Manchester UP, 2017).

Introduction: it's always sunny in Barcelona 1. The European youth film 2. The Spanish Apartment: development, production, reception 3. Bildungsroman in Barcelona: reading The Spanish Apartment 4. Russian Dolls and Chinese Puzzles: revisiting The Spanish Apartment Conclusion: 'Life is for the living. And love is for the giving'