01/12/2011

Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s phenomenal hit Untouchable [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (German title: Ziemlich Beste Freunde), which has already garnered over 10m admissions in France since its release on November 2 (see review), will today open the 11th Berlin French Film Week at a screening attended by the two directors and actor François Cluzet (pictured). The event is supported for the first time by Unifrance. Berlin’s French Institute and four major theatres in the German capital will present 18 recent French-language features (the majority of which are French films, and at least half of which are scheduled to be released soon in Germany).

Highlights in the line-up include another of this year’s big surprise hits, Declaration of War [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Valérie Donzelli (France’s entry for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – see review); alongside Michel Hazanavicius ‘s silent, black-and-white film The Artist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michel Hazanavicius
film profile] (winner of the Best Actor Award at Cannes; tipped for several Oscar nominations); politically-engaged director Robert Guédiguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Robert Guédiguian
interview: Robert Guédiguian
film profile] (also unveiled on the Croisette, before winning the European Parliament’s LUX Prize 2011); and directorial duo Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Chicken With Plums [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was shown in competition at Venice.

Berlin audiences will also get the chance to discover Christophe Barratier’s War of the Buttons [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s auteur thriller Nobody Else But You [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Stéphane Robellin’s French/German co-production And If We All Lived Together [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the burlesque film The Fairy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
film profile] (which opened this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight). Also in the line-up are two lovely animated cat-themed flicks that haven’t yet found German distributors: The Rabbi’s Cat [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Joann Sfar (co-produced by Austria) and A Cat in Paris [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli.

For further information about the programme, visit the festival’s website.

(Translated from French)