BIOGRAPHY
Director's Biography
Bertrand Blier began his career in 1959 as an assistant director to John Berry on his film Oh! que mambo . He certainly caught everyone’s attention with his cinéma-vérité-esque documentary "Hitler ?... Connais Pas!" in 1962, a feature-length examination of an apathetic teenage generation. In 1963, he directed his father, the legendary Bernard Blier , in his first long fiction feature Si j'étais un espion . Only in 1974 did Blier finally, and with something of a vengeance, break through with his brilliantly scandalous and irreverent cult classic Les Valseuses which depicts with hilarity and judicious offensiveness the sexual escapades of two small time crooks. The film launched not only Blier’s career but the careers of Miou-Miou, the late Patrick Dewaere and of course Gérard Depardieu. Four years later, he reunited with his Depardieu - Dewaere duo to shoot Préparez vos mouchoirs . He then directed Depardieu , alone this time, in Buffet froid in 1979, which was awarded the César for best screenplay, and then Dewaere in 1981 in the subversive Beau-Père – a revisitation of sorts of Lolita. Both screenwriter and director for all his films, he perhaps made the greatest uproar with one of France’s most infamous films of the 1980’s : Tenue de soirée, which again featured Miou-Miou and Depardieu as well as Michel Blanc and which tackled full-frontally the relatively taboo subjects of homosexuality and threesomery. Three years later, his success was even greater with Trop belle pour toi another tale that exploded social preconceptions of conventional domesticity and which won the Grand Prix du jury at the Cannes Festival as well as five Césars (among which Best Feature, Best Director and Best Actress for his leading lady Carole Bouquet). The 1990’s were scored with awards and prizes, due perhaps in part to his new, fruitful collaboration with Anouk Grinberg , the latest addition to his gallery of “favourites”. Prominent among these films were Merci la vie and Un, deux, trois, soleil which in 1993 won two Césars and had Marcello Mastroianni rewarded with the Coupe Volpi for Best actor at the Venice festival. In 1996, Grinberg won Best actress at Berlin for her uninhibited interpretation in Mon homme . In 2000, the director assembled over thirty great names in French cinema for the somewhat derisive homage Les Acteurs . However, his following film, Les Côtelettes , starring Philippe Noiret and Michel Bouquet , was less enthusiastically received both critically and popularly. In 2005, he returned in full form with Combien tu m'aimes ? , the story of a contractualized affair between a prostitute (Monica Bellucci) and her client (Bernard Campan) . Ten years after Les Acteurs , Blier again directs Albert Dupontel who, in the dramatic comedy Le Bruit des glaçons , embodies Jean Dujardin ’s undeniable cancer.

Jean Dujardin’s Biography
Famous for his stand-up physical comedy which he demonstrated in the hit television show “Un gars, une fille” and which not only introduced him to his wife Alexandra Lamy but also earned him wide popular acclaim, Jean Dujardin was propelled to proper stardom with his impersonations of the cult surfer icon Brice de Nice in 2004 and the satirical secret service Agent Oss 117 in 2005. More recently, he has ventured away for comedy to explore more nuanced, complicated narratives and character development (namely with Nicole Garcia’s Un Balcon sur la mer [2010] and Bertrand Blier’s Le Bruit des glaçons [2010]). With a charismatic but not conventionally handsome physique (reminiscent in fact of Jean-Paul Belmondo), and a skillful ability to take unpredictable comedic and dramatic turns, Dujardin lends great credibility and humanity to characters challenged with the delights and dramas of life.