Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of Frances greatest film stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, in her lifetime she received two Césars, three BAFTAs, an Emmy, a Cannes Film Festival Award, the Silver Bear for Best Actress awards, a NBR Award and a Golden Globe nomination. Signoret was born Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker in Wiesbaden, Germany, to André and Georgette Kaminker and her mother, from whom she acquired her stage name, was a French Catholic. Signoret grew up in Paris in an atmosphere and studied English, German. During the German occupation of France, Signoret mixed with an group of writers and actors who met at a café in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter. By this time, she had developed an interest in acting and was encouraged by her friends, including her lover, Daniel Gélin and she took her mothers maiden name for the screen to help hide her Jewish roots. Signorets sensual features and earthy nature led to type-casting and she was seen in roles as a prostitute.
She won considerable attention in La Ronde, a film which was banned briefly in New York as immoral and she won further acclaim, including an acting award from the British Film Academy, for her portrayal of another prostitute in Jacques Beckers Casque dor. She appeared in notable films in France during the 1950s, including Thérèse Raquin, directed by Marcel Carné, Les Diaboliques. In 1958, Signoret acted in the English independent film, Room at the Top, which won her numerous awards including the Best Female Performance Prize at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was the only French cinema actress to receive an Oscar until Juliette Binoche in 1997 and Marion Cotillard in 2008, and she was offered films in Hollywood, but turned them down, continuing to work in France and England—notably opposite Laurence Olivier in Term of Trial —until 1965. In 1962, Signoret translated Lillian Hellmans play The Little Foxes into French for a production in Paris that ran for six months at the Theatre Sarah-Bernhardt and she played the Regina role as well.
Hellman was displeased with the production, although the translation was approved by scholars selected by Hellman, Signorets memoirs, Nostalgia Isnt What It Used To Be, were published in 1978. She wrote a novel, Adieu Volodya, published in 1985, Signoret first married filmmaker Yves Allégret, with whom she had a daughter Catherine Allégret, herself an actress. Her second marriage was to the Italian-born French actor Yves Montand in 1951, Signoret died of pancreatic cancer in Autheuil-Authouillet, aged 64. She was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and Yves Montand was buried next to her, the play charted the deteriorating relationship between Signoret and Marilyn Monroe during the filming of Lets Make Love. Unable to achieve the recognition of Oscar-winning Signoret, Monroe begins an affair with Signorets husband, singer Nina Simone took her last name from Simone Signoret
Sorry, Haters
Sorry, Haters is a 2005 film written and directed by Jeff Stanzler, starring Robin Wright Penn, Abdel Kechiche, Élodie Bouchez and Sandra Oh, distributed by IFC Films. It was a selection in both the Toronto and American Film Institute film festivals. It was released on DVD on August 8,2006, Ashade, a New York City taxicab driver from Syria encounters a strange fare in Phoebe, played by Robin Wright Penn. The lead character, bitter from a recent divorce, forces friendship upon Ashade who accepts it very reluctantly, when she learns of Ashades familys legal problems, she imposes upon him further. This imposition reveals a side to Phoebe, causing Ashade to flee their brief friendship. Phoebe retaliates in spite, turning Ashades life upside-down, in order to put his life back in order, Ashade must seek out Phoebe and enlist her help, and in doing so, he learns about and falls prey to her dark secret. In 2007, Haters was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Female Lead, the film was shot in 5 days
Abdellatif Kechiche
Abdellatif Kechiche is a Tunisian-French actor, film director and screenwriter. He made his debut in 2000 with La Faute à Voltaire. His film Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme dOr at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, born in Tunis, he moved with his parents to Nice at the age of six. He directed Games of Love and Chance, known as Lesquive and he presented The Secret of the Grain at the 64th Mostra del Cinema in Venice for which he was awarded the Special Jury Prize. The film received the FIPRESCI Prize, the Louis Delluc Prize and he was decorated by the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2005 and in 2008. His 2013 film Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme dOr, several days a controversy erupted about Kechiches work methods, technicians on the film accused him of harassment, unpaid overtime and violations of labour laws. The film won Best International Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards in 2013, review of The Secret of the Grain. Abdellatif Kechiche at the Internet Movie Database
Laetitia Masson
Lætitia Masson is a French film director and screenwriter. She has directed ten films since 1991 and her film À vendre was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Chant de guerre parisien Nulle part En avoir Je suis venue te dire À vendre Love Me La repentie Pourquoi le Brésil Coupable Moving the Arts G. H. B, X Femmes, Season 1, Episode 4. Director Laetitia Masson at the Internet Movie Database
Wild Reeds
Wild Reeds is a 1994 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, about the sensitive passage into adulthood and the awakening of sexuality in four youths at the end of the Algerian War. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th Academy Awards, the film is set in southwest France in 1962. François, a shy man from the lower middle class, is working towards his high school diploma. He spends most of his time talking about movies and literature with his best friend, Maïté, Mme Alvarez and Maïté are communists. At the boarding school, François becomes acquainted with Serge, the son of immigrant farmers. At night, he joins François in the dormitory to chat, Serge draws François into an erotic relationship. François discovers his homosexuality and develops an attraction for Serge. François confides this discovery to Maïté, who swallows her disappointment, when Serge becomes increasingly interested in Maïté, she declares herself to be interested in nobody.
Serges brother Pierre dies while serving in the army in Algeria, an Algerian-born French exile, enrolls in the boys boarding school and aggravates their conflicts, adding a political conflict. He is obsessed with events in Algeria and supports the OAS and he treats François without sympathy and bluntly tells him to own up to his homosexuality. His political stance provokes Serges hatred, Henri finally engages Maïté, his political opposite, and they yield to their mutual attraction. But after completing the script, Téchiné decided to make it a theatrical release. Based on his own story, it is his biggest personal success in France. It is one of limited number of films on the delicate subject of the Algerian War. They include The Little Soldier, Avoir vingt ans dans les Aurès and it was released in the United States on May 10,1995 grossing $38,192 in 7 theaters its widest release eventually grossing a total of $917,915 in North America. In France the film received limited release playing at a total of 40 cinemas, in total the film had 589,301 admissions in France and was the 51st highest earning film of the year.
At the 1995 César Awards, Les Roseaux Sauvages won Best Film, Best Director, Most Promising Young Actress and Best Original Screenplay. com Wild Reeds at the Internet Movie Database
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress
The Best Actress Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the films in competition at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946, the ceremony was cancelled in 1948,1950, and 1968. No awards were given to actresses in 1947, on four occasions, the jury has awarded multiple women the prize from one film. The four films were A World Apart, Brink of Life, A Big Family, the jury on occasion cites actresses with a special citation that is separate from the main award. From 1979 to 1981 the festival awarded a Best Supporting Actress prize. Isabelle Adjani is the actress to ever win the award for two films in one festival, which she did in 1981. The award can be for lead or supporting roles, barbara Hershey won the award consecutively in 1987 and 1988. ‡ - indicates the performance was nominated for an Academy Award 2 wins Vanessa Redgrave – Morgan
Annie Girardot
Annie Girardot was a three-time César Award winning French actress. She often played strong-willed, hard-working, and often women, imbuing her characters with an earthiness. Over the course of a career, she starred in nearly 150 films. In 1955, she began her career, making her film debut in Treize à table. Her performance in Jean Cocteaus play La Machine à écrire in 1956 was admired by the author who called her The finest dramatic temperament of the Postwar period, in 1958, Luchino Visconti directed her opposite Jean Marais in a French stage adaptation of William Gibsons Two for the Seesaw. In 1962, she married Italian actor Renato Salvatori, in 1968, she starred in the cult anti-consumerism French film Erotissimo. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, and remains Girardots biggest box office hit in France and she Talks or Philippe de Brocas Dear Detective. In 1974, she starred in the hit teen movie, La Gifle, as Isabelle Adjanis mother. In 1972, she said in an interview to The New York Times, citing as Exhibit A her role as a freak in The Ape Woman.
I believe that the acting of any role — from duchess to kitchen slavey — must be a form of transformation, in 1977, she won her first César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in the drama Docteur Françoise Gailland. Throughout the 1970s, she was the highest paid actress in France, between the release of Live for Life in 1967 and Jupiters Thigh in 1980,24 of her films have attracted more than one million admissions in France. In her 1989 autobiography, Vivre daimer, she wrote of her popularity that People didnt come to watch a beautiful, vamp-like creature, I played a judge, a lawyer, a taxi driver, a cop, a surgeon. I was never a glamorous star, the 1980s were less kind, as her career floundered and parts dwindled. In 1983, she lost a fortune when Revue Et Corrigée and she subsequently battled depression, but bounced back with several television series in France and Italy. However, Girardot had a comeback on the big screen playing a peasant wife in Claude Lelouchs Les Misérables.
The role won her a second César Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1996, upon accepting the award, a joyous and tearful Girardot expressed her happiness that she had not been forgotten by the film industry in a speech that remained very famous. In 1992, she was the Head of the Jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival, in 2002, she was awarded the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Piano Teacher. She collaborated with director Michael Haneke again, in Caché, on stage she had a triumph in 1974 with Madame Marguerite, which became her signature role that she reprised on numerous occasions until 2002
Daft Punk
Daft Punk are a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter. The duo were managed from 1996 to 2008 by Pedro Winter, the duo released their debut studio album Homework through Virgin Records in 1997 to highly positive reviews. The duos next album Discovery was even more successful, driven by the release of the hit singles One More Time, Digital Love, in March 2005, the duo released their third album Human After All to mixed reviews. However, the singles Robot Rock and Technologic achieved considerable success in the United Kingdom, Daft Punk toured throughout 2006 and 2007 and released the live album Alive 2007, which won a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. The duo composed the score for the Disney film Tron, Legacy in 2010, in January 2013, Daft Punk left Virgin for Columbia Records, and released their next album Random Access Memories in 2013 to worldwide critical acclaim. The albums lead single Get Lucky became a success, peaking on top 10 charts in 32 countries.
Random Access Memories won five Grammy Awards in 2014, including Album of the Year, Daft Punk gained their first number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song Starboy, a collaboration with The Weeknd. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo met in 1987 while attending the Lycée Carnot, the two became good friends and recorded demo tracks with others from the school. This eventually led to the formation of the group called Darlin with Laurent Brancowitz in 1992. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo played bass and guitar, while Brancowitz performed on drums, the trio had branded themselves after The Beach Boys song of the same name, which they covered along with an original composition. Stereolab released both tracks on a multi-artist Duophonic Records EP and invited the band to open for stage shows in the United Kingdom, Bangalter felt that The rock n roll thing we did was pretty average, I think. It was so brief, maybe six months, four songs, a negative review in Melody Maker by Dave Jennings subsequently dubbed the music a daft punky thrash.
Instead of dismissing the review, they found it amusing, as de Homem-Christo stated, We struggled so long to find Darlin, and this happened so quickly. Darlin soon disbanded, leaving Brancowitz to pursue other efforts with Phoenix, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo formed Daft Punk and experimented with drum machines and synthesisers. In September 1993, Daft Punk attended a rave at EuroDisney, the demo tape given to Macmillan at the rave formed the basis for Daft Punks debut single, The New Wave, a limited release in 1994. The single contained the final mix of The New Wave called Alive, Daft Punk returned to the studio in May 1995 to record Da Funk. It became the duos first commercially successful single the same year, after the success of Da Funk, Daft Punk looked to find a manager. The duo eventually settled on Pedro Winter, who promoted them
