U.S. Premiere • Romance • France, 2015

DCP • 2.35 • Dolby 5.1 • Color • 115 min

Directed by: Claude Lelouch
Written by: Claude Lelouch, Valérie Perrin
Cinematography: Robert Alazraki
Film Editing: Stéphane Mazalaigue
Original Score: Francis Lai
Produced by: Claude Lelouch (Les Films 13), Davis Films, JD Prod
Cast: Academy Award ® winner Jean Dujardin (Antoine Abelard), Elsa Zylberstein (Anna Hamon), Christophe Lambert (Samuel Hamon), Alice Pol (Alice Hanel)
International Sales: Davis Films

In this slow-burning romance, charismatic leads Jean Dujardin and Elsa Zylberstein play opposites attracting in postcard India. Celebrated film composer Antoine arrives in Mumbai to record the music for a Bollywood take on Romeo and Juliet. Already bored with the idea of scoring yet another “movie for festivals”, the womanizing charmer sets his sights on Anna, the younger wife of the French Ambassador. Ever since his arrival, Antoine has been unable to shake a headache, exacerbated it seems by his much younger girlfriend, who keeps calling from Paris. Anna, on the other hand, is convinced that a child is the only thing missing from her relationship, and decides to go on a “fertility pilgrimage” to the holy city of Varanasi to commune with Amma, the “hugging saint.” With his awards and his self-satisfaction, Antoine doesn’t see the need for spiritual quests, but with his girlfriend’s arrival a few days away, he’s got some time to kill. And who knows, a motherly hug might be just the thing for that nagging migraine of symbolic import.

Few filmmakers are more in love with the idea of being in love than writer/director Claude Lelouch. After six decades of filmmaking and five life partners, the 78 year-old veteran remains ever the hopeless romantic of French cinema. Lelouch forged that reputation beginning fifty years ago with A Man and a Woman, a simplistic love story that earned him a grand slam of both the Palme d’Or and the Foreign Language Oscar. If his overt sentimentalism confounded his New Wave cohorts, audiences felt no such ambivalence. Over the years he scored hits such hits as Les Misérables (1995), and the thriller Roman de gare (COLCOA 2008). Most recently his films have taken on a more autobiographical nature, with protagonists that are thinly veiled stand-ins for Lelouch himself, allowing him to explore themes of mortality and family ties. This is Lelouch’s second collaboration with co-writer Valérie Perrin, who worked with him on We Love You, You Bastard (COLCOA 2014).

QUOTES:

“Lelouch diehards will not be disappointed by this new spin on an old theme.”
– Judith Prescott, French Cinema Review

“…casts a certain spell with its touches of movie love, its elegant score by frequent Lelouch collaborator Francis Lai, and especially its central performances.”
– Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter