The Spanish Apartment

The Spanish Apartment (L'Auberge espagnole, 2002) is Cédric Klapisch's comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Xavier, a French student, leaves Paris for an exchange year in Barcelona and lands in a flat already crammed with young people from across Europe.

An Italian, an Englishwoman, a German, a Spaniard, a Dane and a Belgian share one apartment, seven languages and an endless tangle of unpaid bills, missed phone calls and other people's love lives. Xavier (Romain Duris) came to study economics and ends up learning how to live instead: he falls for the wrong people, lies, makes friends and loses track of himself. Audrey Tautou plays the girlfriend he left behind, Cécile de France is Isabelle, and Kelly Reilly turns up as the British flatmate Wendy.

This is the first chapter of Klapisch's Erasmus-generation trilogy, later continued in Russian Dolls and Chinese Puzzle. Shot almost like a documentary, with a handheld camera and a constant multilingual buzz, it became an unofficial anthem for student exchange across Europe. A film about the single year that rearranges everything. Stream The Spanish Apartment (2002) online on iFILM.