The Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley this spring will host a series of films starring the seminal New Wave actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, pictured here with Chantal Goya in the 1965 Masculin-Feminin by Jean-Luc Godard.

Léaud, who acted for decades as the alter ego of director François Truffaut beginning with The 400 Blows at age 15, also starred in films by Godard, Jacques Rivette, Jean Eustache, and Michelangelo Antonioni. As much as James Dean embodied the restlessness of American youth in the 1950s, Léaud embodied the “Generation of 1968″ French youth who was intellectual, anti-establishment, and effete, all at the same time.

The series begins Jan. 18 and runs through February at the PFA on the campus of UC-Berkeley.