Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.

As a rereading of his films, "Contretemps" (in the fight against time), Jean-Daniel Pollet brings together excerpts of his films and a report by Jean Baronnet. The author Philippe Sollers and philosopher Julia Kristeva voice their thoughts.

The film presents Julia Kristeva during a few interviews, conducted in Paris, which allow us to discover her thinking. They accompany different sequences of her personal life: on the Ile de Ré, where she spent long periods in the company of her husband, the writer Philippe Sollers; in Bulgaria, where she returns to the footsteps of her childhood. Mixed with these sequences, other older images, often intimate, present Kristeva in her youth. These private archives are the secret continent of a busy public and intellectual life.