Jérémie Renier

“Those who assume classical musicians are sissies may have to adjust their thinking after Tomorrow At Dawn, in which classical music meets historical battle re-enactments to excellent effect…Read More »

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Olivier Assayas is about as protean as today’s great filmmakers come, but the last thing I expected from the mad genius behind the globe-trotting, gorgeously kinetic Boarding Gate is a Chekhovian chamber drama whose mantra could be essentially reduced to: posterity cares. If Boarding Gate convincingly documented a 21st century where human beings can be bought, sold, and shipped from New York to Paris to Hong Kong like shares on the NASDAQ, Summer Hours is the sobering requiem for the safety of objects, for the shape and weight of everything we leave behind when we give in to perpetual flux. Together the two films offer a deeply affecting inquiry into the meaning (and market necessity) of attachment in an age of unfettered globalization.Read More »

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With its bigger-name cast and audio-visual sparkle, “Saint Laurent” also seems the safer commercial bet for international distribs, effectively the “Coco Before Chanel” to its rival’s “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.” Sony Pictures Classics has already snatched it the film off the rack for the U.S., and should be feeling a little more confident than “Yves Saint Laurent” guardians the Weinstein Co. Still, Bonello’s sexier number must gamble on sustained audience interest in a chilly figure whose life — notwithstanding the drugs, desires and debauchery that go with the high-fashion terrain — wasn’t extraordinarily dramatic.Read More »

A dispossessed young couple living in a bleak industrial Belgian town live off unemployment benefits, panhandling and petty theft. Their lives change forever when they have a baby. The father learns how one avaricious decision can affect the lives of everyone in his orbit.Read More »

A biopic of French pop star Claude Francois, most famous for co-writing the song ‘My Way’. Tracing his life from his childhood in Egypt through his success in France to his untimely death in Paris in 1978.Read More »

Pascale (Isabelle Huppert) lives with her adult twin sons, aimless François (Yannick Renier) and headstrong Thierry (Jérémie Renier, star of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s L’ENFANT and LA PROMESSE), in a renovated Belgian farmhouse. Each is still reeling from the divorce that divided the family some years earlier. Both boys pursue their respective interests, but neither seems compelled to embrace adulthood or the responsibilities that come with it. However, all that is about to change. Pascale has fallen in love again and dreams of a new life for herself and her lover a countryside B&B that they aspire to own together. But what would seem to be a happy time in her life takes a turn for the worse as she finds herself unable to rise from the shadow of her ex-husband and selfish children. In a bid for survival, Pascale leaves the house in the hands of Thierry and François, never suspecting that in her absence, long-buried resentment and rivalry will boil over, igniting a war between the brothers. (DVD Backcover)Read More »

Roger uses his son Igor to ruthlessly traffic and exploit undocumented immigrants. When one of the immigrants is killed, Igor is guilt-ridden and wants to care for the dead man’s family against his father’s orders.Read More »

Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and ’80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the ’60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques’s artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer’s ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself…Read More »

French bad boy director François Ozon, who caused a stir with his controversial first feature Sitcom (1998) and his shorts A Summer Dress (1997) and See the Sea (1997), creates a dark and brooding tale of transgression and sexuality for his second feature outing. Alice (Natacha Régnier) is a bored, spoiled high schooler with a gorgeous body and a sociopathic mind. She persuades one of her suitors, the naive and trusting Luc (Jeremie Renier), to murder another suitor, the handsome, rakish Said (Salim Kechiouche). Read More »