PARIS THE LUMINOUS YEARS tells the story of Paris from an unprecedented point of view, not as the familiar, glamorous backdrop for the revolutions that exploded there, but as active protagonist, catalyst and midwife to modernity. The film spotlights now-famous key figures in the art world's first international avant-garde, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Hemingway, Serge Diaghilev, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Aaron Copland, Josephine Baker, Marcel Duchamp, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Beach, Janet Flanner and many more, as they recount their individual stories of why they came to Paris, whom they met, what they made there, and how being in Paris transformed them and their work.