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- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in 1966, Achero Mañas first followed in the steps of his mother, actress Paloma Lorena (who played in two of his films), but he soon turned from thespian to film director. He made three shorts before meeting with success - both public and critical - with Pellet (2000), the sensitive portrait of a pair of big city kids, reminiscent of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959). His second feature Noviembre (2003) also garnered least five awards but he was less successful with Blackwhite (2004). After five years in the wilderness, Mañas is making a come back with Todo lo que tú quieras (2010).- A great name of the Portuguese theatre, Adelina Abranches was paid a national homage at the Teatro São Luiz as of 1928, and in the presence of General Carmona, the President of the Republic himself. And yet there had been nothing to suggest that Margarida Adelina, born into very poor Lisbon family in 1866, would become such an admired star of the stage. The fact is that, like at the end of a Dickens novel, fate, through a quirk of which it holds the secret, proved favorable to her despite a very problematic beginning in life. Indeed misery had struck after her father had left the family home, forcing his wife, little Adelina and her eight brothers and sisters to work in order to bring back home what little money they could. But the silver lining was that to get a few reis, five-year-old Adelina, still unable to read and write, was propelled on to a stage. Of course she was only an extra in 'Os Meninos Grandes' but she enjoyed the experience and soon expressed the wish to renew it, which she would actually go on doing for... seventy-odd years! She was still only eleven when she created a sensation with her interpretation of a transvestite prince in 'Leonor de Bragança'. After this, she never stopped working, until her death in 1945 at age 79, in Portugal and in Brazil, in classic, popular or avant-garde works. She even founded her own company in the 1910s. As for her contribution to the silver screen it unfortunately remains negligible, the great lady of the Portuguese boards having appeared only in secondary roles and in no more than three pictures, 'Maria do Mar (1930)', 'Lisboa (1930)' and 'A Rosa do Adro (1938)'. But theatre was her vocation, not cinema.
- Actor
- Producer
Akira Terao is the son of the famous actor Jukichi Uno. After graduating from Bunka Gakuin University, he formed a rock band "The Savage" which experienced brief success thanks to their hit 'Itsumademo, Itsumademo'. In 1967, Kei Kuma hired him to play alongside his father in his film 'Tunnel of Kurobe'. Terao then signed a contract with Ishihara Productions for which he appeared in several films. Akira Kurosawa chose him to play in two of his films, 'Ran' (1985) and mainly, as Kurosawa himself, in 'Dreams' (1990). On the other hand Terao continues to write and sing songs and his song 'Ruby no Yubiwa' was awarded the 'Record Taisho' prize for 1986. He also regularly works for television, notably for Ishihara TV Productions.- Born in Argentina, Alberto Jiménez graduated in Spain at the Royal Dramatic School of Madrid and soon worked regularly for the theater. After being noticed for his role in the very successful Pellet (2000), this excellent actor landed a lot of parts on the big as well as the small screen. Aside from Pellet (2000) he was in another masterpiece, 'Alejandro Amenabar''s The Sea Inside (2004).
- Alex Dreier, a rare case of a well-known radio and TV news reporter and commentator turned actor late in life. Born in 1916, he graduated from Stanford University in 1939 and became a newsman shortly afterwards. His first assignment was as a correspondent for the United Press in Berlin. Put under surveillance by the Gestapo, Dreier managed to leave Germany one day before Pearl Harbor. After this narrow escape, he worked regularly with NBC and ABC as a reporter, commentator and anchor. Aged fifty, he opted for acting and, for over ten years, performed character roles in 25 movies or TV series episodes, the best of which being 'The Boston Strangler' (Richard Fleischer, 1968) and 'The Carey Treatment' (Blake Edwards, 1972).
- Actor
- Writer
Alexander Engel was born in Berlin on 4-6-1902. He studied drama at the Reicherschen Hochschule für dramatische Kunst. He debuted at the theater in Allenstein in 1923 and was later hired in Königsberg, in Rostock and, from 1931, in Berlin. One year later he started a film career that would occupy him until his death in Saarbrücken on 25-7-1968, successfully specializing in threatening and eerie characters.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Born in Paris on July 13th 1923, Alexandre Astruc is the son of a couple of journalists. Very good at school, he attended a preparatory school for Polytechnique but finally became both a law and an arts graduate. First a literary critic, he soon specialized as a film critic and worked for various papers and magazines such as "Combat", "La Gazette du Cinéma", "L'Ecran français", "La Nef", "Ciné-Digest", "Les Cahiers du Cinéma". He was instrumental in the creation of the film club "Objectif 49" and of the "Festival du Film Maudit" in Biarritz (circa 1949/50). His first two works were sixteen millimeter films characteristic of the Saint Germain des Prés" era. In the fifties and early sixties he directed very personal, elegant, literary movies but found it harder and harder to find producers interested in his style. He turned to television and novel writing instead.- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
This elegant actor of the golden age of German cinema appeared in several masterpieces, before the cameras of such inspired geniuses as Lang, Lubitsch and Murnau. Vocation had come rather late in his life, though. Abel was indeed already 33 when he made his first film. Beforehand, he had been a forester, a gardener and a shopkeeper. But one day, while watching a film with Asta Nielsen, he was struck by revelation. He decided at once to become an actor and with the help of Nielsen in person he started a fruitful screen career. He also wrote and directed a few films. He died too soon aged only 57, but having honored the German screen with his noble, dignified figure in more than a hundred pictures.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Tall, but never standing uptight, even looking a bit sloppy; a drowsy look but with a twinkle of irony in the eye; a grumbling tone but not without some sympathy underlying; a winning drawling Paris accent;
You may have recognized Alfred Adam, the French actor par excellence.
Adam could as well be the nasty type as the regular working-class Parisian, the cuckold as the local Casanova, a general as a chauffeur, a gangster as a policeman, a peasant or the richest man in the village, an ordinary butcher as an eccentric. While being always convincing with, in addition, this Gallic touch that made (and still makes) him a treat to look at and to listen to.
Born in 1908 in Asnières, a North-West suburb of Paris, Alfred Adam proved multi-talented as of a young age. Besides becoming an actor, he studied civil engineering, wrote plays (his most famous being 'Sylvie et le fantôme'), penned film screenplays and dialogs and even the argument for a Roland Petit ballet. He also showed a life long interest in reading, sport (boxing, tennis, soccer), good food and friendship. He was a local figure in Montmartre where he lived, gaily strolling the streets in his long long coat and his wide wide hat.
But acting was his main activity and he did interpret scores of roles, whether at the theater, for the cinema or television.
Trained at the Conservatoire by Louis Jouvet, he worked for him between 1935 and 1939 before being hired by another great name, Charles Dullin and becoming a member of the Comédie Française. Ever an open-minded artist, Alfred Adam never said no to a good light comedy.
As far as movies are concerned he debuted in 1935 in Jacques Feyder's masterpiece 'La kermesse héroïque'. His greatest role is unquestionably that of Cornudet, the Republican who is the only one to defend a brave prostitute against self-righteous bourgeois and nobles in Christian-Jaque's film version of Maupassant's 'Boule de Suif'. He was also very good as the chauffeur and confidante of Gabin in Verneuil's memorable 'Le President' and an absolute delight as Maréchal de Villeroy, that old codger, in Bertrand Tavernier's 'Que la fête commence'
The only regret we can have is that Adam accepted too many roles in minor pictures. He would have been amazing in pictures by Renoir, Clouzot, Grémillon or Carné.- Director
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Born in Tozeur, Tunisia, Ali Abdelwab worked for many years in the theatre. The self-taught man was still very young when he entered the Yenboua Company in Tozeur. Later on in Tunis, he was only 22 when he founded his own company named 'La Renaissance du théâtre'. In 1965, he was awarded the Ali Belhaouane prize for the play 'Hadda et les ennemis de la révolution'. In the meantime, Abdelwahab was part of the birth of the Tunisian cinema after the independence of his country, working as assistant-director to Jacques Baratier and Omar Khlifi and actor (for the latter director notably). He also founded 'Films Faiza' (after the name of his wife, actress Zohra Faiza) and in 1969 wrote, directed and produced his only feature-length movie -Om Abbes (1970)_, the tale of a mother determined to avenge her son.- A long long career. 140 roles in films ('I Want to Live', 'The Glory Guys', 'The Cat from Outer Space'...) and on television ('Bachelor Father', 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', 'Lux Video Theatre'...). And many many radio shows ('This Is Your FBI', 'Dangerous Assignment', 'Suspense, 'The Whistler '...). There is no denying Alice Backes was a hard worker. Not to mention the fact that she was a gifted violinist, that she joined the Women's Branch of the Naval Reserve during the War, and that she contributed all her adult life to various charities, including after she retired from acting. Born in 1923, young Alice graduated from high school before attending the University of Utah. After the War, Alice Backes decided to move to Hollywood where she quickly earned small parts in films, TV series and radio programs. From then on - and for nearly five decades - she would work steadily, specializing in character roles. Her rather commonplace physical appearance (though she was tall by Hollywood standards) enabled her to get effortlessly inside everyday life characters such as nurses, doctors, dentists, librarians, waitresses, judges, farmer's wives... Only once in her career did she embody a historical character, and that was Hedda Hopper, in 'Gable and Lombard'. Alice Backes finally retired in 1997 after a last appearance in a 'Columbo' episode, a nice vehicle for a last hurrah. She died ten years later.
- Born in Richmond, Virginia, Alice Beardsley stepped a stage at the early age of 12. The event took place in the festival hall of her junior high school. Disguised as a witch, she enjoyed playing the villain in 'Hansel and Gretel'. And that was not to be a flash in the pan. Alice wanted to be a professional actress and she did become one. Indeed after graduating from the University of Iowa she studied acting very seriously, notably with Stella Adler. In 1955, she performed her first play in New York (she was Maggie in 'Eastward in Eden') and many, many plays were to follow on or off Broadway and in other places. Alice Beardsley also played bit parts in six movies (one of which is Woody Allen's 'Zelig') and appeared in several episodes of TV series like 'Naked City' 'U.S. Steel Hour' and 'American Playhouse', but her main activity remained theater.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Alice Sapritch was unattractive and she knew it for a fact. She nevertheless decided to become an actress, aware that she would never be the love interest of the handsome hero or play the blushing ingénue. That's the reason why she set about emphasizing her lack of glamor instead of concealing it. In these conditions, two main categories were available to her, either obnoxious monsters (Folcoche in TV made 'Vipère au poing') or foolish eccentrics (the crazy actress in 'L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune'). In 1971, with 'La folie des grandeurs', Gérard Oury gave her the opportunity to combine monstrosity and ridicule in a single character, the duenna of the Queen of Spain who, although as ugly as sin, indulges in what may well be the most comical striptease ever filmed. Unforgettable! And not being a beauty queen also happened to be an advantage. Didn't she play Hamlet's mother at the age of twenty-three? And when she was older, the beauty factor having become irrelevant, she was able to embody the poignant 'Mère russe' (Russian Mother) in the TV film of the same title. The real trouble is her film career for, in spite of one or two satisfying roles, she appeared in an endless series of particularly inept vulgar French 'comedies'. By her own admission, she would have dreamed of being directed by Bergman, Schlöndorff or Herzog and she wound up working for Philippe Clair, Michel Gérard, Jean Luret and co! Of course there were a few exceptions to this rule, for instance when she played Aunt Elizabeth in Téchiné's 1978 'Les soeurs Brontë' and a few appearances in good quality films at the beginning of her career but all in all her performances on the silver screen are a real disappointment compared with what she did on TV and on the boards.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Little known by the general public, Moroccan-born Amidou can nevertheless boast an onstage and on screen career spanning almost five decades. Appearing in French films most of the time, he also worked in Morocco, in Tunisia and in American action movies like William Friedkin's 'The Sorcerer' and 'Rules of Engagement', John Frankenheimer's 'Ronin' and Tony Scott's 'Spy Game'. Good-looking and charming, Amidou can easily become frightening and threatening. He is as convincing in the role of a friendly blue collar in 'Smic Smac Smoc' as in that of a dim-witted henchman in 'Fleur d'Oseille'. To be fair, he appeared more often as a dropout or a thug than as positive figure, but this is due to the fact that he started his career in the nineteen sixties, when French cinema was not yet ready to show a North African as just another citizen. Had Amidou debuted later he would have landed more rewarding roles like those now interpreted by Roschdy Zem or Sami Bouajila. Born in 1942 in Rabat, Amidou Ben Messaoud was the son of a justice of the peace and the nephew of the owner of several movie theaters, which gave him the opportunity to see lots of films. On the other hand, the young boy discovered at school that, although he was a bad pupil, he could captivate an audience when, during French lessons, he told and mimicked fables by La Fontaine. Later on, he studied drama at the Conservatoire de Paris and was immediately hired by Jean-Louis Barrault in 1961. Noticed by Jean Genet while he was rehearsing for a bit part, he was given the role of Said instead. At the same time, Claude Lelouch gave him his first part in 'Le Propre de l'Homme' Amidou would then appear in nine other films directed by Lelouch, who also gave him his only starring role in a French movie entitled 'La Vie, l'Amour, la Mort', a pamphlet against the death penalty. Kept busy by the big screen, Amidou was less active in the theatre but played a one man show in the late 1990s ('Le Piston') and held the lead in Mehdi Charef's '1962' in 2005. He also occasionally appeared on TV. Lately Amidou has been honored twice - and quite deservedly so. He was indeed awarded two best actor prizes, one at the Cairo International Festival, for Leila Triquie's 'Poursuite' (2005) and the other at the Tangiers Film Festival for 'Ici et Là' by Rachid Boutounès (2005)- Mustachioed, serious-countenanced, bald with a remaining crown of hair, with an imposing round figure, André Alerme became for two decades the quintessential dignitary of French cinema. Indeed, between 1930 and 1950, the popular character actor divided his performances between the Army, the Church and the Nobility. In the seventy-odd films he was in, he was in turns, captain (once in the army, the other time in the navy), the commander of a dragoon company, a colonel ; a baron (twice), a viscount, a count, a marquis, the King's tax collector and even, in the forgettable Aloha, le chant des îles (1937) , a Scottish lord (not his best role!) ; a priest, and even Saint Peter! He could also easily portray officials or people with an influential role in society : a doctor (twice), a politician, managers of various kinds, industrialists (he was already one in his first and only silent Amour et carburateur (1925), mayors, a financier, a couturier... His roundness could have suggested gentleness, but it is rather Monsieur Prudhomme, Henry Monnier's famous caricature character, that producers saw in him, the prototype of the plump, conformist, sententious, selfish bourgeois. For most of the characters played by Alerme are either unpleasant or ridiculous or both. The role epitomizing this type of character was the unforgettable pompous but cowardly mayor of a Flemish city in Jacques Feyder's classic Carnival in Flanders (1935). Alerme, although nearly always very good, has never been better than in this unparalleled masterpiece.
André Alerme had been born in Dieppe in 1877 and started studying medicine and sculpture, but irresistibly attracted by theater, he soon appeared on the Paris theater scene. It did not take long before he met with success in plays by Henri Bernstein, Alfred Savoir, 'Edouard Bourdet', Jean Anouilh, Marcel Achard and many others. His passage from the boards to the studio spotlights was marked by the role of Georges Samoy he played in Sacha Guitry's Le blanc et le noir (1931) and reprised in Robert Florey's film version. Combining stage and cinema work in the early thirties, André Alerme tended to privilege the seventh art after 1936. Most of the films he participated in were just commercial but a few remain, signed by Jacques Feyder, Julien Duvivier, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Abel Gance, Claude Autant-Lara, Edmond T. Gréville. A great actor, Alerme will forever remain Joseph Prudhomme, complete with pomp and wicked foolishness. - Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Grandson of a Belorussian and Ukrainian couple in love with music, son of an accordionist who founded "L'Orchestre des Quatre Frères" (he was one of the four brothers), this native of Thionville, in the North East of France, could not (nor wished to) escape Euterpe. The child quickly integrated the brass band of his village, where he learned the clarinet and oboe. Later, with his literary baccalaureate in his pocket, he studied simultaneously at the Metz Conservatory and the city's Faculty of Musicology, before embarking on a two-decade dual career as a music teacher at the Villerupt College and as a multi-card musician. Endowed with an insatiable curiosity, he explored various instruments (playing the bass in a a punk-rock band, the saxophone in a jazz group) as well as the most diverse styles (jazz, electro, punk-rock, electro, techno, world music, rap, improvisation). It was by joining the Acid Jazz Parparu collective that he made a decisive meeting, that of Marc Mergen. Together, they were approached to enter the world of film music. Together, they composed the soundtrack for "Une liaison pornographique". Since then, having resigned from the National Education Department due to overworked employment, André Dziezuk has devoted himself full-time to film music. In 2019 he had written no fewer than 45 scores. Full-time? Well, almost... because this workaholic still finds time to teach oboe and computer music at the music school in Dudelange, Luxembourg.- André Lefaur is undeniably part of the pantheon of French actors. One of those "eccentrics of the French Cinema" as Raymond Chirat and Olivier Barrot quite rightly dubbed them. One of these wonderful personalities of the stage and screen who alongside Michel Simon, Louis Jouvet, Saturnin Fabre, Raimu and several others have such a strong personality, such a personal style that they are absolutely inimitable. Just like the actors mentioned above, André Lefaur was first and foremost André Lefaur. Which does not mean that he did not make the character he played believable. Quite the contrary. But like Simon, Brasseur or Raimu, he made them bigger than life and- accordingly - unforgettable. It is to be noted that on the big screen was most of the time a nobleman (at lest twenty times: six times a marquis, four times a baron) and/or a figure of authority (four times a general, but also a colonel, a judge or a president). However, instead of causing the viewer to admire these figures of the elite, Lefaur invariably deflated the ego of those pompous empty windbags. Yes, André Lefaur was nearly always cast as a v.i.p. but this person was invariably starchy, tyrannical ('La Fleur d'Oranger'), weak, pretentious, ridiculous ('La Dixième Symphonie') or cuckolded ('L'Habit Vert'). On the other hand, he never made puppets of his characters. There was always humanity within them and the viewer tended to end up feeling sorry for them rather than despise them. Marc Allégret allowed Lefaur to display all his humanity in his final role, that of a loving father in 'Les Petites du Quai aux Fleurs'), which was a nice farewell present to a man who will always be remembered for his ability to deliver witty lines by Louis Verneuil, Mirande, Deval, Flers and Caillavet like nobody else.
- Actress
- Production Manager
- Producer
Born in Maisons-Laffitte on 5-5-1920, Andrée Debar grew up in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg where she graduated from high school. Living in this tiny but bilingual country and having an English grandmother gave Andrée a definite advantage : being able to speak fluent French, German and English, to which she later added Italian by dint of working for Roman studios. Still in Luxembourg, feeling the urge to become an actress, she attended the Conservatory of Music and Comedy. Once in Paris, where she settled down after completing her studies, she continued on the same track, studying drama with Marcelle Géniat until 1949 when, thanks to Jean Cocteau, she was given the opportunity to be part a prestigious tour in Egypt. Cinema noticed her even before, and she made her debut as of 1940 in a short and as of 1946 in the feature film in two parts They Are Not Angels (1947). Her figure, willowy and elegant, was an asset but might not have been enough to make her stand out in the crowd of all those starlets wishing to make a plash in the movies. What attracted the producers, directors and talent scouts was her unusual - almost masculine - look. As a matter of fact she was at her best when the strange mix of femininity and masculinity in her were exploited to their full potential. She is fascinating in two films by the director who best captured her physical ambiguity, 'Jacqueline Audry' in La garçonne (1957) and Le secret du Chevalier d'Éon (1959). What a pity André Debar decided to quit acting after the latter film. She could have done more troubling things during the bolder 1960s and 1970s. But Andrée Debar turned to film production instead - until 1977. And after this date, she gave a final farewell to cinema, preferring to open an antique shop with her old friend Sophie Desmarets as her partner. When she died of Alzheimer's disease in 1999, Andrée Debar and her androgynous beauty were totally forgotten. She deserved better.- To get an idea of what Angelo Bardi looks like, just picture comic singer Pierre Perret in the costume of Planchet. Of the former, he has the round chubby face. Of the latter, D'Artagnan's loyal servant in Dumas' "The Three Musketeers" he owns the loquacity and cleverness hidden behind rustic manners. No wonder if he was chosen by Yannick Andréi to play the role in his 1977 mini series "D'Artagnan amoureux".
Little present in the cinema, where he appears only rarely (Basile in "Benjamin" by Michel Deville in 1968; the hairdresser in "L'Amour en question" by André Cayatte in 1978), the witty actor has worked enormously in the theater (in plays by Giraudoux, Shakespeare, Tourgueniev, Barillet and Grédy...) and on television in TV movies, series or mini-series signed, among others Jean Delannoy, Philippe Arnal, Marcel Bluwal, Roger Kahane or Marion Sarraut.
Active on the screens from 1964, he retired thirty years later. - Actress
- Additional Crew
- Publicist
Born in 1976 in Prague, this prolific actress debuted before the cameras at the early age of 14. Also a top model, Anna Geislerová already has an impressive career behind her (110 films, TV films or series episodes in early 2013!) and has received several awards for her remarkable performances, notably in Sasa Gedeon's 1999 "Návrat idiota" (Le retour de l'idiot), Ondrej Trojan's Zelary (2003) and Bohdan Sláma's 2005 "Stestí" (Something Like Happiness), a sensitive work in which she breaks the viewer's heart as a depressed single mother.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Born to a Swedish mother and to a French father, Anna (or Anne) Novion enrolled at the University of Saint-Denis to study cinema. A few years later not only had she got her diploma but she had obtained a practical master's degree as well. And as if was not enough to prove her qualities, the young woman took a "DEA" (post-graduate degree) at Jussieu, the subject of her thesis being "Anguish, Guilt and Despair in Bergman's oeuvre". She directed three shorts as part of her film studies("Frédérique est française", in 2000, "Chanson entre deux", in 2001, and On prend pas la mer quand on la connaît pas (2005). Fascinated by Sweden, she chose this country as the setting - both physical and moral - of her first two features, Les grandes personnes (2008), presented the Cannes Film festival (in the Film Critics Week section) and Rendezvous in Kiruna (2012).- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
The granddaughter of a famous clown and a member of the Fratellini circus family, Annie Fratellini continued the tradition by being a circus artist herself as of the age of fourteen. Later she became the first female circus clown in France and the founder of the first circus school of the country. Not content to be a big top star, she was also a singer and a stage and movie actress. Of course these activities only came second to her burning passion - circus. Nevertheless she can be remembered on the silver screen for at least two roles, that of Mado Petits Pieds, the waitress in Louis Malle's imaginative illustration of Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro (1960) and of Pierre Étaix's wife (which she was also in real life) in his funnily poetic Le Grand Amour (1969). Sure, in latter film, she has a powerful opponent in the charming person of Nicole Calfan, but guess who wins the game in end!- Even if theater has always been Antoinette Moya's prime activity (she has been in stage plays by such great names as Molière, Marivaux, Gorki, Pirandello, Jules Romain, Anouilh, Audiberti, Duras, Dario Fo, ...), the French actress is not averse to cinema. Agreed, her first appearances in the fifties and sixties are scant, but from the 1970's she has become a regular of Gallic movies. She can be a bit player, a character actress or even the female star : in Michel Soutter's interesting 'L'Escapade' (1974), and in Jan Saint-Hamont's mediocre comedy 'Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait au Bon Dieu pour avoir une femme qui boit dans les cafés avec les filles?', whose only distinctive sign is the longer than average title. Often a mother (Isabel Adjani's mum in 'L'année prochaine ... si tout va bien'/1981, Samuel Le Bihan's one in 'Jet Set'/1999) or a mother-in-law ( 'Coup de sang'/2006), she can also be spotted as a customer or a roadside diner cashier, a makeup artist or an estate agent. She is rarely crotchety or peevish (Michel Serrault's wife in Robert Enrico's very good noir 'Pile ou face'/1980). Most of the time she is next-door neighbor or your local shopkeeper, the good-natured person with whom you chat about one thing or another, with whom you deal only with safe unimportant subjects but who makes you feel you are still connected with the others. Antoinette Moya has a particular knack for making such characters credible, so true-to-life that viewers are unable to remember her name. On the other hand, she has been a very faithful follower of a director who is anything but federative, Jean Marboeuf. Her reward in 1994 was the very unexpected role of Eugénie Pétain, the wife of Philippe Pétain, the controversial historical figure, once the savior of France then a puppet in the Nazis' hands in old age.
- Actor
- Stunts
- Transportation Department
Antonio Basile's imposing stature and craggy features made him the ideal choice for the roles of tough guys - the type who does not bother with roundabout phrases to settle accounts. Antonio's career as brutish second fiddle varied according to the Italian popular cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, from sword and sandal movies to spaghetti westerns to violent crime thrillers. He was also a stuntman in this kind of unpretentious entertainment.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Born in 1932 in Amay, a Belgian municipality located in the Walloon province of Liège, Armand Rocour was a radio-TV repairman who developed two passions, aviation and filmmaking. He made his first film, an amateur documentary short, while on an African tour at the controls of his plane. Others followed, in Thailand and in Egypt. He directed his first fiction film, a short, in the mid-seventies, Nous les femmes (1974), adapted from a play by José Brouwers, a playwright of Liège. Two years later, Rocour managed to produce, write and direct his first feature film Les arpents dorés (1976), but it was little seen outside the province of Liège. A second feature, Les dédales d'Icare (1981) was also his last before he died of cancer in 1988.- Actor
- Producer
Willing to be an actor, Artur Agostinho did become one and from his teens (when he was an amateur player at the Campelido Atlético Clube) to the last days of his long life, he appeared on the screen, big or small (O Leão da Estrela (1947), Encontro com a Vida (1960), Sonhos Traídos (2002), ...). But this incredibly multi-talented man did many other things. You could find him in turns commenting a soccer match (his shining hour was the 1966 Football World Cup in London), presenting a radio or TV show, writing a book ('Os Abutres', 2002,...), running an advertising agency (Son Arte) or a newspaper (Record, from 1963 to 1974). Not the lazy kind,for sure. Artur Agostinho is fondly remembered in Portugal where he left a deep imprint.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Asaph Polonsky was born in 1983, in Washington D.C. but grew up in Israel. At the age of 25, he directed his first short, Ritch-Ratch (2008), followed two years later by In Bed at 10 PM (2010). The young man then enrolled in the American Film Institute film school, where he studied direction. His final-year student short, Samnang (2013), about the experiences of a Cambodian immigrant in New York, was acclaimed at the New York Film Festival and later in several others. The same is true concerning his first feature, One Week and a Day (2016), which was noticed for the young director's ability to deal with a serious subject (the death of a 25-year-old son) in a quirky tone (without falling into bad taste). The film garnered several awards in various film festivals, which augurs well for Asph Polonsky's future career.- Actress
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At the beginning of the nineteen thirties a new star appeared in the skies of fascist-led Italy, a nineteen-year-old Russian-born named Assia Norris, soon to be nicknamed the country's sweetheart. Fresh and charming, she drew lots of fans into theaters. Not that the comedies she played in were masterpieces: they were in fact harmless and a bit artificial but constituted welcome escapism from the strange times the Italians were living. Not that Assia Noris was the greatest actress ever either: she never really changed face expressions, when she was supposed to cry she shed crocodile tears plus she could not go beyond the superficiality of the characters she was given to play. But how sizzling she was, how cute she was and what beautiful costumes and hats she wore! And if most of her films have not aged well the ones she made for her husband Mario Camerini, most of the time with heartthrob Vittorio De Sica, ("Il Signor Max", "Batticuore", "Grandi Magazzini") stand the test of time better. The queen of "telefoni bianchi" also appeared in two good French films during the war, Louis Daquin's "Le voyageur de la Toussaint" and Abel Gance's "Le Capitaine Fracasse". Then Mussolini suddenly disappeared from the historical scene. At the same time, Assia Noris' star started waning. The new Italy wanted new sweethearts, or, even better, new seductresses.- Actor
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After a few roles in Korean TV movies, Yong-jun Bae became a star thanks to the series "Winter Sonata". Following this triumph, Yong-jun Bae could have chosen the easy way out and tapped into the opportunity. Instead he chose to try something different by debuting in cinema. His first part on the big screen was that of a Valmont-like ruthless seducer in Yong Je's 2003 "Untold Scandal", a loose adaptation of "Dangerous Liaisons". He was totally different but as convincing in the sensitively told romance "April Snow", showing once again that there is more to Yong-jun Bae than just a standard heartthrob.- Director
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Bahman Ghobadi was born in 1969 in Baneh, in the province of Iranian Kurdistan, near the Iran-Iraq border. Shortly after graduating from the National Audiovisual School, he made his first short, immediately acclaimed by the local critics. One of these short films, "Life in Fog" (1999) is even considered as the most famous short ever made in Iran. This success allowed Bahman Ghobadi to make several feature films, the best known being his first, "A Time for Drunken Horses" (2000), the first Kurd film in the history of Iran. This film and all the the others made by Ghobadi were hits in the festival circuit, garnered dozens of awards but were little seen or not seen at all in his native country. His last movie to date, filmed without official permit, rapidly and feverishly, "No One Knows About Persian Cats" (2009) is a remarkable semi-documentary about underground indie music in Tehran.- Director
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Born in the South of Spain, Benito Zambrano first studied drama for three years with a view to becoming a theater director. He then worked for the Spanish television as a photographer and a camera operator. After a while, he felt the urge to turn to movie-making. This was the early 1990s and, as there was no film school in Spain yet, he was awarded a fellowship to study at the San Antonio de Los Banõs, in Havana, Cuba. That event changed his life. He who, by his own admission, did not know anything about film making, spent two wonderful years there and not only did he learn the ropes of his trade but inspiration visited him as well, allowing him to write three scripts and direct a short The Charm of the Full Moon (1995). Back in Spain, Zambrano had difficulty in finding a producer for his first feature film, but after two long years, he was finally backed by 'Antonio P. Perez', who did not shy away at such 'unbusinesslike' material as _Solas(1999)_. A bold but nice move since this sensitive story of a woman at bay proved a hit in Spain as well as a favorite of the festival circuit and of film critics. Since then the gifted but uncompromising director has made - besides a TV series - only two films, both of which full of humanity: Habana Blues (2005), the portrait of two Cuban musicians, and The Sleeping Voice (2011), a war drama.- Director
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Benoît Lamy, born in Arlon in 1945, was one of the few Belgian filmmakers (along with André Delvaux, Harry Kümel and Chantal Akerman ) whose films were known in the 1970s beyond the borders of his native Belgium. Lamy studied film in Brussels and soon became assistant director to filmmakers such as Yves Ciampi or 'Pier Paolo Pasolini' (Oedipus Rex (1967)). He also co-wrote 'Pierre Laroche ''s Il pleut dans ma maison (1969). He was only twenty-five when he made his first short, Margrit Circus (1970), soon followed by Cartoon circus (1972), directed in collaboration with Picha. His next two films, Home Sweet Home (1973) and Ham and Chips (1977) were two comedies, both ingrained in French-speaking Belgium and universal, the first one denouncing the way old people are treated in retirement homes and the second presenting a Romeo and Juliet-like story against a commercial war backdrop. Co-produced by Jacques Perrin (who also acted in 'Home Sweet Home') and played by French actors and actresses in leading roles (Claude Jade, Annie Girardot), the two comedies were distributed in France and were rather successful. Afterwards, Benoît Lamy was less heard of. Not that he had become lazy! On the contrary, he went on making or producing films (through his firm Lamy Films). Simply, their distribution was more restricted. Too bad, because his production remained interesting, especially the two "African" movies he made starring Papa Wemba, Life Is Rosy (1987) and Wild Games (1997) The end of Benoît Lamy was tragic. After coming out of the closet (he had been married to Bonbon who had given him two children), he had chosen to live with a man. Unfortunately, on 15-4-2008, his companion beat him to death. He was sixty-two and would never know the "Home, Sweet Home" he depicted so well in first feature film.- Born in 1948 to French actress Annick Alane, this good-looking, eclectic thespian has never shown any disdain for any form of his art: theater (in which he served, among many others, Tchekhov, Shakespeare and Molière); musical comedy - both in England and in France ("Can Can", "South Pacific", "Peter Pan", "My Fair Lady"): television (which gave him the opportunity to embody historical figures such as Camille Desmoulins and Paul Ramadier); dubbing (Bernard Alane lent his voice to many a cartoon); and, of course cinema. His debut on the big screen exemplify his protean talent: comical in "Hibernatus", his first film (1969), he displays virile charm in his second movie "Mon oncle Benjamin". Unfortunately for film lovers, his appearances on the big screen have been irregular and generally too brief, for instance in his last feature to-date, "Agathe Cléry" (2008), where he only has a bit-part as one of Jean Rochefort's two sons.
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Anyone living in France has necessarily seen or heard Bernard Dhéran, in a theater, in a movie house, on a DVD or on a TV screen. Didn't he interpret dozens and dozens of plays - plays he sometimes directed himself? Wasn't he in 112 films, TV movies or series? Didn't he dub scores of famous actors such as David Niven, Sean Connery, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lee or IanMcKellen? And yet if you ask anyone in France whether they know the name of Bernard Dhéran you are very likely to get a negative answer. And yet his fine figure, his great presence, his male assertive voice, his elegance (including when he plays the villain of the piece) are unmistakable. Born Bernard Poulain in Dieppe in 1926, he was raised in Rouen and was fourteen when the Nazis invaded France. When time came for him to choose a career he did not know what to do exactly but he took drama classes on a fancy. Little by little passion was aroused and it would never relinquish its grip on Bernard, now Dhéran - to his (and our) delight. He debuted in "Hamlet" in 1946 and was accepted at the Conservatoire de Paris the following year where he won a second prize. First hired by the Renaud-Barrault company, he belonged to the Comédie Française for nearly thirty years. He acted in plays by Molière, Corneille, Mirbeau, Montherlant, Camus, Billetdoux, Poiret, among many many others. He was acclaimed recently in Laurent Baffie's hilarious play "Toc Toc". Solicited by the cinema industry, Bernard Dhéran did not say no but it wasn't long before disappointment set in. Three roles in movies by his master Sacha Guitry, Gina Lollobrigida's fiancé (no less!) in René Clair's "Les Belles de Nuit" (1952) and a good part in a good solidarity movie "Si tous les gars du monde" (1955) by Christian-Jaque but most of the (numerous) films he made during the 1950s were standard comedies or crime stories in which he was invariably the elegant cynical gangster, crook or other type of bad man. Sick and tired, Dhéran went on working for the theater and favored TV where he got much more rewarding parts. He could indeed switch from Buckingham to Richelieu to Beaumarchais, to Voltaire to Talleyrand! Whereas only two or three films he made for the cinema stand out: "La belle Américaine (1962), Le silencieux" (1972), "Ridicule" (1995). It was a pleasure to find him back in 2007 in one of Claude Berri's last films "Ensemble c'est tout", in which he was the picturesque father of colorful Laurent Stocker. Be that as it may, Bernard Dhéran is still active and passionate sixty-three years after he first appeared on a stage. An everyday dedication to his art that commands respect.- Director
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Bohdan Sláma was born in Opava, a city in the Northern Czech Republic (then Czechcoslovakia) on 29 May 1967. Thirty years later, in 1997, Sláma graduated from the FAMU, Prague's Faculty of Cinema. During his student years, he made a short, "Zahradka Raj" (Garden of Paradise, 1994) which was shown at the Premiers Plans d'Angers Film Festival, in the School Film Section. His first feature, Divoké vcely (2001) (Wild Bees), the portrait of a Moravian village and its quirky inhabitants, was distinguished by no fewer than ten international prizes. Four years later, the sensitive chronicle of a group of friends in a drab industrial town, made Stestí (2005) another prizewinner. Beautiful too was The Country Teacher (2008), the story of a teacher from Prague who decides to teach in the country. A name to remember, Bohdan Sláma is one of the major talents of the Czech cinema.- Actress
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Born in Prague in the 1960s, Bojena Horackova, craving liberty, left her country for Paris when she was seventeen, an experience she evokes in "A l'est de moi", a semi-documentary she made in 2008. She studied cinema at the famous IDHEC Film School and started as an actress in shorts. She later started making films, either fiction or documentary, short or feature length ("Malik n'est pas parti", 1996).- Slight, skinny, sweet-faced, with light blue eyes and wavy blond hair, young Boris Alekin fled the October Revolution and settled down in Germany. The young Russian who could speak four languages (Russian, German, English and French) soon became an actor in his host country, mainly in the theater (The Volksbühne in Berlin, the Rose-Theater in Berlin and even on Broadway for a few months in early 1935) but also before the cameras, although he was not given very interesting parts to play. He can be seen in minor roles (a student,a waiter, a bellboy, a small-time crook, a politician, a musician, a low-ranking officer) in thirteen movies, a few of which are above average such as La Habanera (1937) and To New Shores (1937) (both directed by Douglas Sirk), Trenck, der Pandur (1940), a fine Hans Albers vehicle and Friedemann Bach (1941), 'Traugott Mûller''s excellent account of the life of Johann Sebastian Bach's wayward son. In 1941, the still young actor was mobilized and sent to the Eastern Front. The irony of fate had it that Alekin who had run away from his country came back there only to die there in a military hospital. This was March 1942. Boris Alekin was not yet thirty-seven. Another life and another talent shattered by war.
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For two decades and a half, the name of Brigitte Bellac (born in Paris in 1956) was associated with the big and the small screen, first as of 1976 as an actress and later, from 1987 to 2004 as a scriptwriter for TV films and series episodes. But there is much more to Brigitte Bellac's career than "just" that. The lady can also boast being a clown (she loves making people laugh) and a human automaton (exercising her talents in big congress halls such as those of Versailles or Monaco, and even live on the Antenne 2 channel...). And as if that were not enough, she is also a sculptor and pastel art painter. To say nothing about trading the boards from the age of sixteen, (appearing first as young Hauviette in Charles Péguy's 'Le Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc', then in classics by Molière, Marivaux..., before performing in the newly appeared "café théâtre" genre (the cradle of the career of Coluche, Gérard Jugnot, Josiane Balasko, Thierry Lhermitte and their likes). Such versatility could be regarded as a defect (especially in France where people like putting labels to artists) but, as far as she is concerned, this is far from being the case. Being multi-talented does not necessarily mean a squander of efforts. For there is unity to most of Miss Bellac's artistic activities : the terms WRITING and COMEDY being her two main guiding forces, best synthesized in her work for the much loved (and regretted) satiric radio programme on France Inter, "L'Oreille en coin", produced by Jean Garretto and Pierre Codou. For three years on the run she wrote and/or interpreted short stories, tales, comedy sketches and journalistic chronicles galore. A writer since she was eight, Brigitte Bellac has many written short stories, one play ("Jacques a dit"), five novels, several children's books and TV scripts (Sud Lointain (1997), (Le danger d'aimer (1998), Drôles de clowns (1999), Deux frères (2000),...) . As a cinema or TV actress, she was active from 1976 to 1994, doing the splits from the spiritually aloft Charles Péguy to the much more down to earth Michel Lang, debuting in the widely popular À nous les petites Anglaises! (1976). A far cry from Hauviette, young Joan of Ark's best friend. She had indeed become Mireille, the bad and ugly little French chick who brings about the scandal. She was later hired by Édouard Molinaro to appear in his adaptation of Colette's "Claudine" TV series. This time, she was Marie Belhomme, a naive - not to say foolish - girl with the frightened doe's eyes. A dozen films followed but film directors tended to have her repeat this type of roles. Brigitte Bellac wound up being fed up with always playing the stupid girl. Fortunately she got much more rewarding roles in the theatre. After a while, she gave up acting and writing for the cinema and television, a world she found too cruel, and turned to painting, sculpting, novel and short story writing instead. Her literary works owed her several awards she can be proud of. So when you look at painting or a sculpture by Brigitte Bellac, if you read a bloody thriller ("La Pierresse", "Le Fou de la reine blanche") or a noir short story bearing her signature, you will probably never suspect that their author is the former... ugly duckling of French cinema!- Bruno Barnabe, was a manly British actor who worked from 1927 for the stage, the big and small screen. Born in London, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and took his first steps on the boards just one day after his twenty-second birthday. From then on he would be seen in various theaters not only in England but also in the USA (and even once on Broadway in 'Escape Me Never'), in Egypt, Australia and New Zealand. The play 'Escape Me Never' was for that matter an opening door to the cinema as he was hired for its screen adaptation. From then he worked regularly both in feature films and on television. Often chosen by directors to play Italians (he himself was of Italian origin), he found himself in the skin of even more exotic characters such as Frenchmen ('Second Bureau'), Egyptians (the Pharaoh in 'The Mummy's Shroud'), Arabs (and particularly Viziers and Grand Viziers !), Greeks, Russians or Spaniards. His strong build destined him to roles of tough guys, but it is to be noted that he was more often on the right side of law (most of the time as a police officer or inspector - preferably but not necessarily Italian) than the opposite (the night club doorman in 'Pit of Darkness') After fifty years of commitment and loyal service, Bruno Barnabe decided to retire. He died in 1998 at the respectable age of 93.
- Béla Barsi was a hyper-active thespian who worked without any interruption from the age of 22 to his death in 1968 at the too early age of 62. Barsi started his acting career in 1928 in the Romanian town of Cluj. One year later he settled down in his native Hungary where he landed roles alternately in Budapest and provincial theaters. From 1940 to 1944, he belonged to the Oradea company run by Bálint Putnik, and later (1948-1949) to the Györ Theater. Moving to Szeged, he performed in the town theater between 1949 and 1956. Then he became a member of the Budapest National Theater and played there until the end. As of 1952, he also worked in films, in roles of various importance. Bela Barsi thus had the opportunity to appear in films directed by the greatest names of Hungarian cinema, Zoltan Fábri (8 films), Imre Fehér (5 films), Miklós Jancsó (4 films), Karoly Makk (4 films), Felix Mariassy (3 films) and Istvan Gaal (1 film). One of his best roles is that of Istvan Pataki, a tyrannical farmer who has 'sold' his daughter's hand to his business partner in Fábri's stunning "Merry-Go-Round" (1955).
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Carlo Giuffrè, a name which has become inseparable from three others, Aldo Giuffrè, Naples and Eduardo De Filippo. Younger brother of Aldo Giuffrè, he has had, like him, a very long and fruitful career, in the theater, in the movies and on TV, both as good-looking manly protagonists or -and mainly as far as Carlo is concerned - hilarious comedians in the Commedia dell'Arte style. One of their rare meetings on the big screen, in Tre sotto il lenzuolo (1979), with Aldo as a cardinal and Carlo as a businessman who believes the woman in his hotel room is a present to him from the cardinal, is downright irrepressible. A native from Naples, Carlo Giuffrè never disowned his hometown, quite the contrary. He indeed played in most of Eduardo De Filippo's plays (some he also directed), and everybody knows that the great Neapolitan playwright always sets his works in the city that you must see before dying. On the screen, whether big or small, Naples is the setting of many of his films, in which he attracted girls, clowned or ruled as a Camorra godfather, from his very first filmed appearance in De Filippo's Side Street Story (1950) to Steno's TV mini-series L'ombra nera del Vesuvio (1986). As for Eduardo De Filippo, he was instrumental in Carlo's successful career, since the actor has been the performer of his favorite author for decades. Carlo Giuffrè met the maestro in 1948, while in second year of Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica and both men never parted ways until the playwright's death in 1984. One of the most characteristic faces of Italian-style comedy Carlo Giuffrè received a David de Donatello in 1984 and in 2007 he was made 'Grande Ufficiale' by the Italian President.- Director
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Chanya Button was born in London in 1986. After studying drama and literature at Oxford University she became an assistant director in a few of the most prestigious theaters of the English capital (The Globe, the Bush, the Tricycle). She then turned to film and was immediately noticed by her first three shorts, 'Frog/Robot' (2011), 'Fire' (2012) and 'Alpha: Omega' (2013). Her first feature, 'Burn Burn Burn', which she not only directed but produced as well, came in 2016. It succeeded in the achievement of being at the same time thought-provoking and hilarious. Her second feature, 'Vita & Virginia', is by nature less funny insofar as it is the faithful account of the complex relationship shared by Virginia Woolf and her lover and admirer Vita Sackville-West, the two ladies being interpreted with talent Elizabeth Debicki and Gemma Arterton.- Actor
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Popular Hollywood leading man of late silents and early talkies. He is best remembered for his teaming with Janet Gaynor in 12 screen romances between 1927 and 1934. He retired from films in the early 1940s, but TV audiences of the 1950s would see him as Gale Storm's widower dad in the popular television series My Little Margie (1952).- Born in England in 1955, Charlotte Alexandra Seeley was active as an actress in France as Charlotte Alexandra (her middle name) from 1974 to 1976 and in England as Charlotte Seeley (her last name) from 1977 to 1987. Not particularly beautiful but in no way shy about her body, she was the ideal choice for Catherine Breillat's first (and very controversial)opus A Real Young Girl (1976). She is indeed memorable in her only leading role as Alice Bonnard, a surly aggressive fourteen-year-old girl (although she was twenty at the time of filming) who explores her fledgling sexuality in all the directions possible. The other French films she appeared in (with the exception of Jean-Daniel Pollet' charming "tango tale" L'acrobate (1976)) are all soft porns. In England, her parts were less spicy but it is to be noted that one of her last roles happened to be in Personal Services (1987), some kind of spoof (with Terry Jones at the helm how could it be otherwise?) of the sex film she made in France.
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Algerian director living in Brussels, Chergui Kharroubi was born in 1953 in Hamr el-Ain, a small village 70 kilometers West of Algiers. The son of a a baker, young Chergui studied in his village first, then in the Blida high school. He later studied sociology at the Algiers College of Human Sciences before going to Belgium where he attended Institut des Arts de Diffusion, the film school of Brussels. He soon became a respected documentary maker, working mainly for the Belgian national channel RTBF, but occasionally going freelance. Among his most successful documentaries, let's mention "Sauve qui peut la nuit", a striking night chronicle of the life and death of old age patients in a Belgian hospital, "A nos amours", dealing with the tricky subject of the disabled's right to sex life and "Itinéraires Masarat" examining the Palestinian issue.In 2009 he succeeded William Klein when he was entrusted with the making (four decades after the master) of a documentary on the second Algiers Panafrican Festival. He is also the author of a TV film Les Fripiat (1987), but generally prefers reality to fiction.- Actor
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What an amazing career! Few can boast a longer one (64 years of activity). Few have been able to have to relate to three generations. And it is pretty sure that no one can compare with him in terms of faithfulness to a director: Chishu Ryu indeed appeared in no fewer than fifty-two out of fifty-four of his master Yasujirô Ozu. He played in 187 films or TV films and could be a very versatile actor: for instance in 1936, when he was thirty, he embodied a student in one film and an old man in another. However he was perfect in Ozu's films, most often, as a simple, unobtrusive man whose humanity is revealed through the hardships of everyday life. How could Japanese cinema have done without Chishu Ryu?- An arch-villain -- the ultimate henchman -- Chris Alcaide appeared in scores of film noirs (mainly vintage Columbia B detective movies) and Westerns. His tall frame, steely look, and deep voice menaced such TV and movie stars as Glenn Ford, Tyrone Power, Lorne Greene, Richard Boone, Clint Walker, and even Elvis Presley, for decades. In 2003, Alcaide won a well-deserved Crystal Samuelian Golden Boot several months before his death.
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For four decades and a half (from 1945 to 1991), this very active actor worked continuously in all the departments of his art, theater (including stage direction), cinema, TV and dubbing. Among all these activities Christian Alers always privileged the stage, appearing in countless plays, most of which light comedies. He particularly shone in plays by Alexandre Breffort ("Impasse de la fidélité"), Michel André ("Virginie", "Deux imbéciles heureux") or Marc Camoletti ("Boeing-boeing", "La bonne adresse"). In a more poetic register, he was also excellent in André Roussin's "Un amour qui ne finit pas". Which does not mean that Alers, even if he did it only occasionally, shied away from hardcore dramas. He proved he could be convincing in "serious" works such as "Comme avant mieux qu'avant" by Luigi Pirandello or "Les étendards du roi" and "Le cinquième cavalier", both by Bolivian playwright Adolfo Costa du Rels. His most impressive performance remains Joseph Staline in Vladimir Volkoff's "Yalta ou le partage du monde" Like many other stage actors, Christian Alers, made films in parallel with his theatrical career, but, as was the case for a lot of them, this second career proved globally disappointing. Sure Alers made movies as of 1945 (he was 23 then and as skinny as a rake) but his first roles were as thin as his post-war years figure. Things seemed to change in 1950 when he was given the opportunity to top the bill in André Cerf's adaptation of the famous Belgian play Le mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans (1950). His interpretation of Suzanne Beulemens' French crush was fine but, for some mysterious reason, it was an experience with no tomorrow. Indeed, from then on the actor would get only small or tiny parts, sometimes in major films (Philippe in Éric Rohmer's Sign of the Lion (1962); the stranger in 'Michel Deville''s Adorable Liar (1962); young Isabelle Huppert's father in Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974)...) but never with sufficient screen time to be able to prove himself. There were two exceptions to this rule which could have changed things, two leading roles in French-style noir movies (Force 8 (1974) and La cassure (1981)). Unfortunately, both films flopped and that was that with a prestigious film career. But Christian Alers never lacked work on the boards. Moreover, television enabled him to acquire a wide popularity thanks to series like _"Les saintes chéries" (1965-1970)_ or _Marie Pervenche (1984-1991)_. On the other hand, he was particularly colorful as the plump, gray-haired (this was not 1945 any more!) father-figure sidekick to the heroine in two sentimental historical series by Marion Sarraut, Marianne, une étoile pour Napoléon (1983) and Catherine, il suffit d'un amour (1986) Christian Alers was therefore a happy and fulfilled actor when he retired in the 1990s. This faithful companion of the performing arts for 45 years could then take his bow with with the consciousness of work well done as well as the recognition from the spectators.- Actor
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A "funny face", Christian Duvaleix was for nearly four decades a faithful companion of French light théâtre (Alfred Adam's "Sylvie et le fantôme" in 1942, Sacha Guitry 's "Deburau" in 1950, Gaby Bruyère's "Ange pur" in 1966), music-hall (he was a member of Robert Dhéry's famous company of loonies "Les Branquignols" from 1948), stand-up comedy and radio. He was also present in many a movie comedy, (Robert Dhéry's Branquignol (1949), The American Beauty (1961) and Vos gueules les mouettes! (1974); Norbert Carbonnaux's Les corsaires du Bois de Boulogne (1954)), imposing a rather subtle style of comic effects. He also appeared in three of Jean-Pierre Mocky's movies, but paradoxically enough, not in comedies, Un couple (1960), Solo (1970) and Un linceul n'a pas de poches (1974). And he was often chosen for supporting roles in international English-speaking productions such as Paris When It Sizzles (1964) and Isadora (1968) for his typically French looks. Born in Tunis in 1923, he was the son of another comedian, Albert Duvaleix and the father of painter Jean-Pierre Duvaleix. The 'Like Father LIke Son' chain was not really broken with Jean-Pierre, since both Albert and Christian had been amateur artists themselves. Christian Duvaleix was only 56 when he died. He is buried beside his father in the cemetery of Garches, near Paris.- Director
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Christian Petzold was born in Hilden in 1960. After studying German and Drama at the Freie Universität Berlin, he enrolled in Berlin's German Academy for Film and Television (DFFB). There he studied film direction while at same time working as an assistant director to Harun Farocki and Hartmut Bitomsky. After graduation, Christian Petzold made several interesting TV films. In 2000, his first theatrical feature, The State I Am In (2000), about a couple of left-wing terrorists, is released and makes a strong impression and earning its director both the German Film Award and the Hessischer Best Film Award. By 2012, this prolific creator has managed to make two more TV films and five additional features, among which Yella (2007), the sensitive portrait of a young woman who tries to escape the grip of her violent and possessive husband, and especially Barbara (2012), which won the 'Best Director' award at the Berlinale. This fine drama plunges the viewer into the everyday life atmosphere of the GDR like few films before and serves as a showcase for its director's talents.