›› Contre-Enquête

Patrick Gimenez, Producer
Contre-Enquête

Patrick Gimenez is a professional of the movie industry for the last twenty
years. President of French Feeling Films, an American company distributing
French movies in OVA (Original Version with American sub-titles), Patrick
Gimenez has produced and distributed, alone or in partnership, over 170
films.
Patrick Gimenez, through his Company "French Feeling Films" based in Miami and Paris, is also very much involved in two growing festivals featuring
US and world premieres: he produces France Cinema Miami, an
annual festival of French Cinema since 2005 , and is an active partner of
Focus on French Cinema, also a festival of French cinema held in the New York area , now in its 4th year.

Boris Van Gils, Assistant Director and Producer
›› CowBoy

Boris Van Gils has been working very closely with director Benoit Mariage as his first assistant director in the movie Cowboy and will be the producer of his next film. His career as assistant director has seen him work on various movies among them: “Tout un hiver sans feu” ( A Long Winter Without Fire), "L’Autre” ( The Other Half) and “ Le Roi danse” ( The King is dancing) . He also worked as producer and director of fiction movies including full feature films and shorts as well as documentaries. Some of his titles are: “Michael Blanco” from Stephan Streker, “Les tremblements lointains” from Manuel Poutte and Tata. He is a Belgian citizen based in Paris.

Alice Taglioni, Actress

Before wanting to become an actress, Alice Taglioni trained as a pianist at the Music Conservatory of Paris. While there, she took theater courses to become more comfortable on stage and quickly got hooked on the theater and caught the acting bug.
She began her film career in 2001 in "La bande du drugstore" and "Quatre copains". She obtained one of the principle roles in "Brocéliande", plays in "Le Pharmacien de garde" (The Pharmacist) and "Grande école" in 2002.
In 2003 the film "Mensonge et trahison et plus si affinités" (The story of my life) gave her public recognition. In 2005 Alice undertook more prestigious productions. She was a pilot in the "Les chevaliers du ciel” (Knights of the Sky); then acted in "Le Cactus" (The Cactus) and also acted with Gad Elmaleh in "La Doublure" (The Valet) by Francis Veber. In 2007 she acted in “L’ile au trésor” (Treasured island), “Acteur” and “Détrompez-vous” . 2008 is a busy year for her, with “Notre univers impitoyable” already released and 3 projects which will be released soon: “Sans arme, ni haine, ni violence”, “Cash” and “Tous sans exception”.

›› Le Malentendu Colonial

Jean-Marie Téno, Director
Le Malentendu Colonial

That's why I make films -- to prove I'm not a sheep and to involve people in their own destiny.—Jean-Marie Teno
Jean Marie Teno is one of Africa’s premiere documentary filmmakers, known for his insights into Africa’s colonial past and post-colonial present. He was born in 1954 in Famleng, Cameroon. In 1977 he moved to France (where he still lives) and studied audiovisual communication, receiving an M.A. from the University of Valenciennes. He worked in journalism for a time. The story goes that while interviewing the great director Ousmane Sembène, he so impressed the veteran director with the seriousness and perceptiveness of his questions that Sembène asked him why he was not making films himself. Téno soon took the director’s advice to heart and began making short documentaries and fiction shorts. His short documentaries include Schubbah (1983), Hommage (1984), Bikutsi Water Blues (1988), Mister Foot (1991), and La Tete dans les Nuages (1994); his fiction shorts include Fièvre Jaune Taximan (1985) and La Gifle et la Caresse (1987).
His 1992 feature documentary, Afrique, Je Te Plumerai ( Africa, I Will Fleece You), was well received in the West, placing him in the forefront of young African directors. This personal documentary is a powerful indictment of the cultural “fleecing” of Cameroon (and thereby Africa as a whole) over the last 100 years by the three European countries that colonized it-- France, Britain, and Germany. Teno's voice off-screen explains his intention: “I sought the relationship of cause and effect between the unbearable past, with its colonial violence, and the present. I sought the reason why a land with well-structured traditional societies changed into an incompetent state.” The film uses a fascinating modernist style to tell its story, bringing together material from a variety of sources (forgotten newsreels, present-day television and press clippings, colonialist memoirs, a satirical nightclub act, memories of his own upbringing and education) to create a dynamic, nervous mix.
Teno made his first feature film, Clando (shown at the 8th CFAF), in 1996. It tells the story of a Cameroonian computer programmer who for political reasons has been reduced to living as a “clando,” driving a clandestine, unregistered taxicab through the anarchic streets of Douala. His more recent documentaries include Chef!/Chief! (1999), Vacances au pays/A Trip to the Country (2000), Le Mariage d’Alex/Alex’s Wedding(2003), and Le Malentendu Colonial/The Colonial Misunderstanding (2005).

Teno is currently Visiting Artist at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

›› Le Héros de la Famille

Claude Brasseur, French actor
Le Héros de la Famille

Actor Claude Brasseur is a third generation actor: his parents Pierre Brasseur and Odette Joyeux were also renowned thespians, and they formed the young Claude.
Claude Brasseur attended the Parisian acting conservatory and played roles in the theater from his 1954 debut in Marcel Pagnol’s Judas and Bon appétit messieurs (Bon Appetit, Sirs) by Elvire Popesco. He then gained a foothold in the film business with a small role in Rencontre à Paris ( Meeting in Paris ) by Georges Lampin (1956), followed the same year by Le Pays d’où je viens (The Country I Come From), directed by Marcel Carné.
After three years of military service, he worked with Jean Gabin in Rue des prairies (Rue de Paris) (Denys de la Patellière, 1959), and with his father in the fantastic Georges Franju’s masterpiece Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) (1960). But he really gained popular recognition in TV roles such as Rouletabille in Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (Mystery of the Yellow Room) (1965), and Vidocq in Les Nouvelles aventures de Vidocq (The New Adventures of Vidoq) (1967). At the same time, he worked with talented young directors like Jean-Luc Godard (Bande à part) (Band of Outsiders) (1964), Costa-Gavras (Un homme de trop) (Shock Troops) (1967), François Truffaut (Une belle fille comme moi) (Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me) (1972).
He then appeared in two thrillers, Les Seins de glace (Icy Flesh) (1974) and L'Agression (Act of Aggression) (1975), followed by two “buddy movies” that would pave the way for his subsequent career: Yves Robert’s Un éléphant, ça trompe énormément (An Elephant Can Be Extremely Deceptive) (1976), which garnered him a César (France’s Oscar) for Best Supporting Actor, and Nous irons tous au paradis (We Will All Meet in Paradise) (1977). His growing popularity was strengthened by the success of La Guerre des polices ( The Police War ), which earned him another César, for Best Actor.
With the movies La Boum (The Party) (1980) and La Boum 2 (The Party 2) (1982), directed by Claude Pinoteau, in which he plays the nice father of Vicky (Sophie Marceau), landing an unexpected success and a lively response in all of Europe, becoming the “perfect father” for a whole generation.
In 1982, at the top of his career, Claude Brasseur moved easily from embodying Guy de Maupassant, to incarnating “average” guys: a mourning father rejecting self-defense in Légitime violence (Legitimate Violence), a straight police officer in La Crime (The Crime), a loser and gambler in Taxi Boy. In real life, he also raced regularly in the Paris-Dakar Rally with famous driver Jackie Icx.
In 1986, Brasseur and Marceau played together again; this time not as father and daughter, though, but as lovers with passionate scenes in Descente aux enfers (Descent Into Hell).
In the 1990’s and 2000’s, Claude Brasseur has lightened his schedule, often making key brief appearances in films, as in Le Bal des casse-pieds (Dance of the Foot Breakers) (Yves Robert, 1992), Un, deux, trois, soleil (One, Two, Three, Sun) (Bertrand Blier, 1993), or Chouchou (Little Cutie) (2003). Luckily for us, his version of “tapering” his involvement with cinema over the past few years has included the following: he was nominated for a César as Best Actor for his role as Fouché in Edouard Molinaro’s Le Souper (The Supper) (1992), and he continues to incarnate impressive characters such as a communist spy in L'Orchestre rouge (The Red Orchestra) (1989), a lost fifty-something in Sale comme un ange (Dirty Like an Angel) (1990), a diplomatic police officer in Fait d'hiver (1998), or the authoritarian prison guard in La Taule (1999). In 2004, he once again meets his stage partner Jacques Villeret onscreen in Le Dîner de cons (The Dinner Game ); he also appeared in the drama Malabar Princess, and has already gathered notice for recent supporting roles in popular comedies: L'Amour aux trousses (a play on the French title of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which is known as La Mort aux trousses in France), Fauteuils d'orchestre (Avenue Montaigne) and Camping.
His son Alexandre has continued the family tradition by becoming an actor, too.

›› L'Audition

Luc Picard, French Canadian Director
L'Audition

Luc Picard was born September 24, 1961. He studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Montreal from 1985 to 1988.
Once having completed his studies in 1988, he took on the leading role in the plays Singer, directed by Claude Poissant, and Balzac disignotis, directed by Téo Spychalski. In 1990 he took on the leading role in the play Les lettres de la religieuse portugaise directed by Denis Arcand. Picard has held roles in almost all theatrical scenes in Montreal. He has played in more than 20 productions, the most recent being Juste la fin du monde directed by Pierre Bernard and Serge Denoncourt, Lorenzaccio directed by Claude Poissant, Un simple soldat directed by Yves Desgagnés and Le Misanthrope directed by René Richard Cyr. He has developed a career that both the television and the movie world are sure to notice.
In 1992, television offered him a role in the popular miniserie Blanche and in the same year he was seen in two consecutive miniseries being Scoop and Shehaweh. In 1995, Picard was truly recognised by the public in the role of François Pelletier in the miniseries Omerta. He was then seen in L'Ombre de l'épervier from 1997 to 1999 and from 1999 to 2002 he takes on the role of the colorful syndicalist Michel Chartrand in Chartrand et Simone. In 2004-2005 the actor was also part of the dramatic series Vice caché playing the role of Michel Champagne.

His movie career is as impressive since he holds leading roles in more than 19 films between 1990 and 2005. He can be seen in such films as Nelligan (1990), Octobre (1994), Le dernier souffle (1998), 15 février 1839 (2000), La Femme qui boit (2000), Le Collectionneur (2001), Savage Messiah (2001), 20h17 Rue Darling (2002), L'Audition (2005) and Un dimanche à Kigali (2005).
In 2004, now on the other side of the camera, Luc Picard takes on his first role as director with L'Audition. This movie written by Luc was presented for the first time at the International Film Festival in Montreal. The film was awarded l'Iris d'or which is the highest distinction given at this event. The movie received the best Canadian film award and Luc Picard received the title of best Canadian actor.
As a prolific actor he received numerous awards for interpretation most especially for his roles in 20h17 rue Darling by Bernard Émond, 15 février 1839 by Pierre Falardeau and in Le collectionneur by Jean Beaudin. He was also recognised for his work in many television series such as L'Ombre de l'épervier, Chartrand et Simone, Omertà and most recently for Vice caché.
Either on the small or the big screen, all roles played by Luc Picard have touched the hearts of Quebecers. This versatile actor succeeds to move us now and always.

›› J’invente rien

Michel Leclerc, French director
J’invente rien

Michel Leclerc directed his first film, an 8 min animated short called Le Test Robert, in 1990, while working as an editor for various French TV programs. He directed a second short in 1993, and a third 20 minute film called Hélène et Lulu in 1995. Between 1990 and 2003, he directed 8 short films in all. In the meantime, he began to write a short program series for an affiliate Parisian television channel called Télébocal. In 2000, he wrote six episodes of Mes pires potes (My Worst Buddies), a sitcom produced for the French cable channel Canal +. He then developed another TV series called Avant, moi, je croyais… (I Used to Believe…) about the preconceived and sometimes silly ideas that you can have as a child about things you don’t really understand.
In 2003, he created and wrote 30 episodes of the critically acclaimed docu-drama series Age sensible (A Sensitive Age) broadcasted by France 2, a French public television channel.
In 2003, he co-directed with Bertrand Schmitt Les chimères des Svankmajer (The Chimeras of Svankmajer), a documentary about Jan Svankmajer, the Czech surrealist director of stop-motion animated films, which also aired on France 2.
In 2006 he made his feature-length breakthrough with J’invente rien (Handyman). He has also recently co-written screenplays for two other films, La Tête de maman (Mama’s Head) (French release March 2007), and Histoires bretonnes ( Brittany Stories), with Carine Tardieu.

A true renaissance man, Michel Leclerc is also an accomplished musician: since 2001, he has been the lead singer of a band called Minaro that released albums in 2003 and 2005; he also wrote the music and lyrics of four songs in J’invente rien.

›› Fair Play

Jalil Lespert, French actor
Le Petit Lieutenant

As a teenager, Jalil Lespert accompanied his father, Jean, a theater actor, to a casting. They both landed roles, as the director, Laurent Cantet, was looking for 2 actors to play father and son in a short he was directing called Jeux de plage  (1995). In 1999, Jalil Lespert was cast in his first full-length feature film, Nos vies heureuses, by Jacques Maillot.
In 2000, thanks to Laurent Cantet once again, he is recognized for his role in Ressources humaines, the director’s first full-length feature film. For his role he wins a Cesar for best upcoming actor. A few weeks after the release of this film, he opens in another film called Un dérangement considérable in which he plays a soccer player in love with his best friend’s mother. This film confirms his talent as an actor.Jalil Lespert has become one of the most popular actors of his generation. He prefers roles with character development over action shoots. He plays the sensual gardner in the film Sade by Benoit Jacquot. In the film Vivre me tue, by de Sinapi he plays a loser obsessed with popular culture. The master director, Alain Resnais casts him as a gigolo in the 2003 film Pas sur la bouche. Not long afterwards, Lespert portrays a jounalist inspired by Georges-Marc Benamou in the film Le Promeneur du Champ de Mars, the story of the last years of Francois Mitterand, which is directed by Robert Guediguian.

Diane Kurys, French director
L’Anniversaire

After her Russian immigrants parents’ divorce, Diane Kurys settles in Paris with her mother and her sister. She starts a career as an actress, playing a number of roles in the theater and especially with the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault. In l976, she has a small role in the Federico Fellini movie Casanova de Fellini.
In 1977, she decides to try her hand at directing with Diabolo menthe, a quasi autobiography of teenage years of which she writes the script. The film is well received and wins the Prix Louis Dellus. In Cocktail Molotov, Diane Kurys tells again a somewhat autobiographical story of young adults in l968. In Coup de foudre, she relates the unusual friendship between two women during the 50s and in La Baule-les-Pins, she recalls a family who destroys itself during the summer vacations.

Pascal Thomas, French director
Mon petit doigt m’a dit

Coline Serreau, French Director
Chaos

Born in Paris to stage director Jean-Marie Serreau and writer Geneviève Serreau, Coline grew up as a young girl surrounded by artists.
After high school, she decided to follow her parents' lead and embraced an artistic life and career. While studying literature and classic and modern dance, she joined the Conservatoire de Musique. On her way to becoming an accomplished artist, she set her sight on drama and began to study with Andreas Voutsinas. After l'Ecole de la rue Blanche, she joined the Comédie-Française, appearing for the first time on stage in 1970. She would later appear on stage in Café de la Gare.
After revealing her talent in a wide range of productions, Cafés Theatres and repertoire classics (especially Shakespeare's Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It in the Avignon Drama Festival in 1976) she started writing and finished her first screenplay in 1973 (On s'est trompé d'histoire d'amour based on the book by Jean-Louis Bertucelli).
Two years later, she directed her first short for television - Le Rendez-vous, which was followed by the documentary Mais qu'est-ce qu'elles veulent (in competition at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival), and her reputation as a feminist artist began to take shape. That same year, she directed her first fiction feature, Pourquoi pas! (Why not?).
After the unnoticed Qu'est-ce qu'on attend pour être heureux?, in 1982, she encounterd worldwide success with Trois hommes et un couffin (1985).
In 1989, she embraced another struggle: interracial tolerance through the love story of a CEO and a black cleaning lady in Romuald et Juliette. This was followed by, La Crise, (and success once again), thanks to its harsh, yet humorous depiction of a generation confronted with unemployment, divorce and family crisis.
In her following movie, La Belle verte, she directed herself playing the part of an extraterrestrial who discovers a plant ravaged by the excess waste left by the consumption of society. While audiences failed to show much interest in this environmental tale, Coline Serreau met success again five years later with Chaos. Nominated in six different categories at the 2001 César Awards, the ferocious Chaos is a story denouncing society's lack of courage. After directing two long features films (Saint Jacques... La Mecque and 18 ans après, the sequel of Trois Hommes et un couffin), Coline Serreau is now working on the adaptation for the US of Chaos, starring Meryl Streep, to be released in 2008.

Philippe Muyl, French Director
Le Papillon

After receiving a Bachelors degree in philosophy, Philippe Muyl studied graphic arts in Belgium and Paris. He worked in the advertising world as an artistic director before becoming co-founder of Line Space, a design company, and Synchrony Productions, an audio-visual production company.
Philippe Muyl has made many industrial films and commercials, and in 1976 he directed the short film The School of the Heads.
His first full-length feature, The Tree under the Sea, starring Christophe Malavoy and Julien Guiomar, was an official selection at the Berlin Film Festival in1985. Muyl again focused on the relationships between humans and animals in the 2000 comedy The Cow and the President.
Muyl's first great success came in 1993 with his adaptation of Cuisine et Dépendances, a play by Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui, followed by the comedy All Must Disappear in 1997. The Butterfly, the story of friendship between an old collector of butterflies (Michel Serrault) and an eight year old girl (Claire Bouanich), was a tremendous success from the time of its 2002 release in France. He is cutrrently working on Magique !, a musical film with Marie Gillain and Cali, to be released at the end of 2007.
www.philippemuyl.fr

Patrick Gimenez, US Distributor
Nickel and Dime

Patrick Gimenez is a professional of the movie industry for the last twenty years. President of French Feeling Films, an American company distributing French movies (in Original Version with American sub-titles), Patrick Gimenez has produced and distributed, alone or in partnership, over 150 films. French Feeling Films is also a co-producer of France Cinema Miami, an annual festival of French cinema since 2005, featuring US and
World premieres.