Istvan Van Heuverzwyn

La Patinoire is about a film director who is shooting a highly symbolic film called 'Dolores' at an ice rink. He has hired a Lithuanian ice hockey team with which he is having enormous communication problems. His actors all have inflated egos, his film crew is made up of fools, and there is a politician on his back. But he must finish the film, no matter what, in time for the Venice Film Festival.

A young journalist (Lespert) helps the French President compile his memoirs.

Lucie Audibert, a student of Art History, does research work on Watteau and is certain that a hidden sense that nobody has ever deciphered can be found in a few of his paintings. The further she explores this the more Professor Jean Dussart - for unclear reasons - tries to discourage her.