Paris, je t'aime

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Paris, je t'aime

©2007 First Look Studios
Directed by Various
Produced by Emmanuel Benbihy
Claudie Ossard
Written by Various
Starring Various
Music by Various
Distributed by Flag of France La Fabrique de Films
Flag of the United States First Look Pictures
Flag of Canada Maple Pictures
Release date(s) Flag of France 21 June 2006
Running time 120 mins.
Language French / English / Chinese / Spanish
Budget $16,000,000
Followed by New York, I Love You
Official website IMDb Allmovie

Paris, je t'aime (French for "Paris, I love you") is a 2006 film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities including American, British and French. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements. The 21 directors include Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gerard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles and Gus Van Sant.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 18 May, opening the Un Certain Regard selection. It had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on 10 September and its U.S. premiere in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 9 April 2007.[1] First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the United States on 4 May 2007.

Contents

[edit] Arrondissements

Initially, twenty short films representing the twenty arrondissements of Paris were planned, but two of them (the XVe arrondissement, directed by Christoffer Boe, and the XIe arrondissement, by Raphaël Nadjari) were not included in the final film because they could not be properly integrated into it.[citation needed] Each arrondissement is followed by a few images of Paris; these transition sequences were written by Emmanuel Benbihy and directed by Benbihy with Frédéric Auburtin. Including Benbihy, there were 22 directors involved in the finished film.

The 18 arrondissements are:

  • Montmartre (XVIIIe arrondissement) — by French writer-director Bruno Podalydès. A man (played by Podalydès himself) parks his car on a Montmartre street and muses about how the women passing by his car all seem to be "taken". Then a woman passerby (Florence Muller) faints near his car, and he comes to her aid.
  • Porte de Choisy (XIIIe arrondissement) — directed by Australian director Christopher Doyle and written by Doyle with Gabrielle Keng and Kathy Li. A comic film in which a beauty products salesman (Barbet Schroeder) makes a call on a Chinatown salon run by a woman (Li Xin) who proves to be a tough customer.
  • Parc Monceau (XVIIe arrondissement) — by Mexican writer-director Alfonso Cuarón. An older man (Nick Nolte) and younger woman (Ludivine Sagnier) meet for an arrangement that a third person ('Gaspard'), who is close to the woman, may not approve of. It is eventually revealed that the young woman is his daughter, and Gaspard is her baby. The film was shot in a single continuous shot. When the characters walk by a video store, several posters of movies by the other directors of Paris, je t'aime are visible in the window.
  • Place des fêtes (XIXe arrondissement) — by German writer-director Oliver Schmitz. A Nigerian man (Seydou Boro), dying from a stab wound in the Place des fêtes asks a woman paramedic (Aïssa Maïga) for a cup of coffee. It is then revealed that he had fallen in love at first sight with her some time previously. By the time she remembers him, and has received the coffee, he has died.
  • Faubourg Saint-Denis (Xe arrondissement) — by German writer-director Tom Tykwer. After mistakenly believing that his girlfriend, a struggling actress (Natalie Portman), has broken up with him, a young blind man (Melchior Beslon) reflects on the growth and seeming decline of their relationship.

[edit] Production

Julio Medem was attached to the project for a long time. He was supposed to direct one of the segments, but this finally fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of Caótica Ana (2007).

Paris, je t'aime is the first feature film to be fully scanned in 6K and mastered in 4K in Europe (as opposed to the normal 2K). Encoding the image took about 24 hours per reel (at Laboratoires Éclair).[citation needed]

[edit] Influence

Following the success of Paris, je t'aime, a similarly structured film, New York, I Love You, focusing on life in the Five Boroughs, premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival and is set to be released in a limited number of theatres in 2009.

Tokyo!, a triptych-film following this same style, saw limited exposure in 2008 and 2009.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Thomas, Mary (2007-04-06). "Film Notes: Movie scholar to discuss student film opportunities". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07096/775588-254.stm. Retrieved on 2007-12-19. 

[edit] External links

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