French liaison

Yuri Gladilshchikov

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Last week, Unifrance invited European journalists and distributors to Paris to find out what's new in cinema, what to watch, what to buy

In America there is the MPAA film association, in France - Unifrance.

In terms of influence, they are not yet comparable (the Americans are stronger), but they can be considered competitors: there are no other organizations in the world that were created to promote national cinema abroad. There was Sovexportfilm, but it disappeared, and besides, its representatives often sat abroad for completely different purposes.
France, of course, is especially fighting for Europe - and Russia, in particular. In December, when a mini-festival of French cinema was held in Moscow, the author of these lines participated in a conversation with Unifrance President Daniel Toscan du Plantier (former producer of films by Wajda, Zulawski and Tarkovsky) and, perhaps, was surprised at how sober his calculations were. The President of Unifrance does not at all dream of French cinema overcoming American cinema on the Russian market. He is aware that we know little about the new French stars who appeared later than Deneuve, Delon, Belmondo, Richard and Depardieu. But I am sure that Russia has a huge distribution potential and that it is necessary to stake out areas in advance in order to control its legitimate five percent of the film market in the bright future.


A still from the fascinating thriller (aka black comedy) by Jean-Jacques Benex "Deadly Passage". The legs belong to the hero Jean-Hugues Anglade. In front of him is the same vamp girl who was killed by someone unknown during a psychoanalysis session (Photo: Unifrance )

Now, in Paris, Unifrance - for the third year in a row - has gathered about two hundred European distributors and one hundred film journalists for a special Rendez-vous. The Russian person felt quite comfortable on it. Again: none of us were told fairy tales that French cinema is the best in the world. Those who arrived were simply invited to watch the latest (potential) hits and chat with actors and directors. What follows is a short diary. It will reveal the technology of how the French work with foreigners better than a regular report.

January 12 (19.20 Central European Time) . Exclusive premiere of "Crime in Paradise" by Jean Becker (who once directed "A Killing Summer" with Adjani). The famous non-beauty of French cinema, Josiana Balasko, is brought to the premiere. Contrary to the title, Crime in Paradise is not a thriller, but a French comedy of manners. A quiet village husband, fed up with his drunken wife (this is Balasko’s role), took her and killed her. The radicalism of the film is that the audience is forced to sympathize with the husband. The village also sympathizes with him and, upon his release from prison, greets him with a massive celebration with children's chants - especially since, thanks to the crime, tourists have become frequent there. The film as a whole looks, however, stupid and not very funny - not like the comedy with Richard. Familiar distributors, judging by individual reactions, are not happy.

January 13 ( 15.00) . A tête-à-tête with Anne Brocher (the star of such famous films as “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “All the Mornings of the World.” She will soon appear on our screen in Claude Miller’s film “On Women and Magic,” where she plays a girl who again gains a taste for life thanks to his neighbor in the hospital ward - a mysterious old woman). The conversation, the details of which I will save until the release of the film, begins sluggishly: the actress is serving the number, trying for the sake of Unifrance, but not having the slightest desire to waste mental effort on an idiot from Russia. But, seeing that he knows something - and even the films of Milcho Manchevsky, for whom she will soon portray a prostitute from the Wild West in an ambitious project about the destinies of the 20th century, she noticeably perks up.

- Film meetings in Paris are held to ensure that French cinema finds new niches in the global box office. What advice would you give to those who will screen Miller’s film in Russia, given that it is in no way Hollywood?
- I have no taste for marketing... But if they had told me personally that there was a film on that taught mercy, I would have gone to watch it. But this is probably unconvincing.

In general, Brochet is right. It is clear that those who bought the film will try to release it on video, but the distribution prospects are vague - even despite the FIPRESCI prize in Berlin last year.

January 13 (19.05 - before taking everyone and everything to the fashionable Arabic restaurant Tanjia and then the top model club Les bains). Premiere of the thriller “Love Bites” by Antoine de Cones, unknown to me. “A very expected picture,” says an expert on local fashion. “It’s about how vampires conquer Paris.” Exactly: they conquer, someone is chasing someone, and in the role of a vampire - who else? - Argento's fatal Asia. It's funny to watch a film about Paris at night in Paris at night. If someone had filmed something like that about Moscow, they would have said “chernukha.” Sadomasochist clubs etc. A typical advantage of French cinema: the film is beautiful, every frame is structured. A typical drawback (especially compared to films from Hollywood): the plot is unclear. The distributors began the screening with enthusiasm, but ended in sad thoughtfulness.

January 14 (15.30) . Conversation with director Cedric Klapisch (he directed festival films, was nominated for a Cesar, and has now made an expensive film, Maybe, which will also be released here. Back to the Future was mixed there with Window on Paris: a young man finds a hatch in ceiling of the apartment, through it he suddenly finds himself in the future, where Paris is covered up to the roof with sand, and feels responsible for the fate of his children, revealed in the future (in the role of one of the sons - Jean-Paul Belmondo, walking around the screen with long hair).


One of the main stars of the meeting was actor Daniel Auteuil. Firstly, “The Widow from the Island of Saint-Pierre” (shown at the last Moscow Film Festival) has now been nominated for the prestigious American Golden Globe. Auteuil starred in this film together with Juliette Binoche (pictured) and Emir Kusturica (Photo Unifrance ) :

- Why such a strange future? We are used to seeing houses with hundreds of floors and flying cars in science fiction films, but in yours you have sand and donkey taxis.
- I wanted to go against the futurological line that the media and Hollywood are pursuing. They claim that the future is technological progress and comfort according to the Western, or more precisely, American, model. But, traveling around the world, you see that there is much more of the “third world” than America, and there are more donkeys and horses than the Internet. In general, it is customary to portray the future as either utopian or catastrophic. I decided to find the middle.

- Is sand a symbol of the invasion of France by Africa, Algeria, for example?
- There was such a meaning, but I didn’t want it to be in the foreground. Africa does influence France and many people are afraid of it, but I am not. The influence is rather beneficial. The architecture of Yemen and Sudan is more interesting than the American one, which is already beginning to become outdated.

- Can you say that your directorial orientations have changed? Previously, you made festival films, but now you want them to be box office at the same time (relatively speaking, Besson’s path)? By the way, how was it working with Belmondo?
- It’s easy with Belmondo: he does what the director requires. As for the change in internal attitudes, they really happened. French cinema is fixated on reality, but I wanted to try the Anglo-Saxon approach to creativity, when you allow more fantasy and more abstraction.

January 14 (17.00) . Once again, the loudest premiere is the thriller “Deadly Passage” by Jean-Jacques Benex, who has not directed for a long time (author of “Diva”, “Abyss Blue”, “Moon in the Gutter”, considered one of the three key directors of France in the late 80s along with Besson and Carax ). Jean-Hugues Anglade portrays a psychoanalyst whose patient, a kind of vamp girl, was killed right during a session. It is not known who killed (was it he himself?): the psychoanalyst plunged into himself during a session, woke up - a corpse. From there, the film is mostly funny (albeit mysterious). The humor is extremely dark. The frame is a hundred times more beautiful than in “Love that Bites” (see above), and pleasantly mesmerizing. I won’t analyze the subtext. The distributors at the screening were worried, but immediately groaned that it was still not easy to lure the mass audience to a French film, even such a spectacular one. However, someone seems to have decided to take the risk of buying it.

January 14 (19.30) . The premiere of Francis Weber's "The Closet" - a comedy with which the French hope to beat Hollywood on their own field this season. The duo Depardieu - Richard worked in Weber's "Unlucky" and "Papas", and now the duo Depardieu - Auteuil is working. They want to kick Daniel Otoy's character (he's the main one in the film) out of work as a modest person and a loser. Then, on the advice of a friend, he declares himself a homosexual, and immediately begins to look like a star in the eyes of his colleagues (especially since his company produces condoms and is afraid of appearing homophobic). However, I won’t tell you about Depardiegue’s character - everything turns out really funny. "The Wardrobe" is indeed reminiscent of Weber's old paintings. The distributors were upset that our politically incorrect country could not be attracted to homosexual passions in the workplace. But passion has nothing to do with it. Take the picture and roll it.

January 15 (11.30) . Conversation with Daniel Auteuil (one of the main actors of modern cinema. Recent roles: “The Girl on the Bridge”, “The Widow from the Island of Saint-Pierre”, “The Garden” (where he is the Marquis de Sade), and now “The Closet”. Among them ex-wives - Emmanuelle Beart, with whom he starred in "The French Woman", and Miu-Miu). He says that he never dreamed of playing de Sade, knew little about him, began to read his letters and documents, discovered a lot of dark spots in his character and biography and tried to find his own truth. He says it doesn't matter to him whether he acts in a comedy or a thriller, as he always tries to play guys who are struggling with life. He says (suddenly!) that at one time he was inspired by the “Hero of Our Time”, and pronounces the surname “Lermontov” almost without accent. And we influence the French too! I want to ask about the ideal partner (I played not only with Bear, but also with Deneuve, Binoche, Paradis, etc.), but the conversation is curtailed, since Otoy is in great demand.

January 16 (00.55) . On the way to the final reception at the fashionable (according to Parisian experts) restaurant Ladure'e, we discuss the problem of stars with our colleagues. “Still, Anglade and Auteuil, although they are worthwhile actors and important for French cinema, are not real stars.” - "This is wrong!" - “So! There are no male stars in France after Depardieu. To some extent, only Jean Reno.” - “But there are plenty of women!” - "Who?" - "Ajani!" - “Adjani is over forty and hasn’t acted for a long time” - “Then Juliette Binoche.” - "Binoche - yes." - “And Sophie Marceau?”...

However: at the reception - Sergi Lopez, Jean-Marc Barr, Denis Lavant, someone saw Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert and Godard's Maruschka Detmers, I run to look for (and find at the bar!) Sophie Marceau, then I discover Emmanuelle Béart.
Well, even if not all of them are known to the general public, this does not prevent them from being stars.

After exchanging glances with Bear, I try to get close to Marceau at the final disco, but my husband, Zulawski, is nearby. Climbing through the crowd, I crush the foot (can you see it?) of Natasha Rainier from “The Imaginary Lives of Angels” and “Criminal Lovers.”
Paris is still beautiful. There are movie stars in France. We'll watch French movies.


Secondly, the premiere of Francis Weber's new comedy "The Closet" took place in Paris. Auteuil's company there included Gerard Depardieu, Thierry Lhermitte and Jean Rochefort (Photo: Unifrance )