| (dir. Olivier Assayas, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Walter Salles, Gus Van Sant, et al., 2006)in English and French 120 min.;
Rated R (for language and brief drug use)
Friday, August 17 @ 5:30 pm
Saturday, August 18 @ 8:00 pm
Official site: http://www.firstlookstudios.com/pjt/
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| “New York may be a perennial movie character and Los Angeles a backdrop, but for elegiac representations of itself, Paris beats them both. While no other city can boast such a long-term, intimate connection with the movies, like so many cinematic icons, this one is often reduced to its moldiest clichés. Seeking to redress this problem and present the city as the dynamic, varied metropolis that it is (and not the Eiffel Tower-themed repository for gamines and baguettes it's often shown to be), producers Emmanuel Benbihy and Claudie Ossard assembled a collection of 18 shorts by 21 directors from all over the world, each set in a different Parisian neighborhood. I'd toss in a funny French interjection here if I didn't suspect it would be counterproductive.
Benbihy was approached with the idea by a young French TV director named Tristan Carné. Benbihy, who produced Run Lola Run, began with a short film by Tom Tykwer (who directed Lola) set in Faubourg Saint-Denis. It stars Natalie Portman as a young American acting student who calls her French boyfriend, Thomas (Melchior Belson), one afternoon to tell him she's breaking up with him. This causes Thomas to relive the relationship, as one does, in compressed fast-motion. Squashed into a few minutes, a typical youthful romance becomes a totem of love in all its highs, lows and mundane repetitions. The Coen brothers signed on to the project after Tykwer, and the producers were then able to attract directors as diverse as Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cuarón, Isabel Coixet, Gus Van Sant and Walter Salles. Actors such as Gena Rowlands, Nick Nolte and Fanny Ardant, to name just a few, followed. ...”
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