Plot
The story is set during a workers' strike in Nantes in 1955. Young shipyard worker François Guilbaud is one of the strikers, and he rents a room from Madame Langlois, a widow who sympathizes with the strikers although she is herself upper-class, born a baroness. His girlfriend Violette Pelletier, who works in a shop and lives with her mother, wants to get married but he is unwilling, partly because they have no money and nowhere to live.
In the street François is accosted by a beautiful woman wearing only a fur coat. This is Édith Leroyer, unhappily married to the owner of a television shop, who has taken to part-time prostitution. The two have a blissful night together in a cheap hotel and fall in love.
In the morning Violette comes looking for François because she has learned she is pregnant, but he tells her he loves another woman. Meanwhile, Édith, going back to her husband's shop to collect some things and leave him, has a terrible row with him during which he cuts his throat. She flees back to her mother, who is François' landlady. Next morning, François joins a demonstration which is broken up by the police and is fatally injured. His workmates carry him up to the flat of the baroness, where he dies in the arms of Édith. Unable to live without him, she shoots herself.
Cherbourg is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 February 2000, which was merged into the new commune of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin on 1 January 2016.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. The film's dialogue is entirely sung as recitative, including casual conversation, and is sung-through, or through-composed, like some operas and stage musicals. It has been seen as the middle part of an informal "romantic trilogy" of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall look, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). The French-language film was a co-production between France and West Germany.
Belle de Jour is a 1967 psychological drama film directed by Luis Buñuel, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, and Michel Piccoli. Based on the 1928 novel Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel, the film is about a young woman who spends her midweek afternoons as a high-class prostitute, while her husband is at work.
Jacques Demy was a French director, lyricist, and screenwriter. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated for their visual style, which drew upon diverse sources such as classic Hollywood musicals, the plein-air realism of his French New Wave colleagues, fairy tales, jazz, Japanese manga, and the opera. His films contain overlapping continuity, lush musical scores and motifs like teenage love, labor rights, chance encounters, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. He was married to Agnès Varda, another prominent director of the French New Wave. Demy is best known for the two musicals he directed in the mid-1960s: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).
Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux was a French actress of stage, television and film, as well as a singer and dancer.
8 Women is a 2002 dark comedy musical film written and directed by François Ozon. Based on the 1958 play by Robert Thomas, it features an ensemble cast of high-profile French actresses that includes Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier and Firmine Richard. Revolving around an eccentric family of women and their employees in the 1950s, the film follows eight women as they gather to celebrate Christmas in an isolated, snowbound cottage only to find Marcel, the family patriarch, dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.
The Young Girls of Rochefort is a 1967 French musical comedy film written and directed by Jacques Demy. The ensemble cast is headlined by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, and features George Chakiris, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, Grover Dale and Geneviève Thénier, along with Gene Kelly and Danielle Darrieux.
Dominique Marie-Françoise Renée Varaigne, professionally known as Dominique Sanda, is a French actress.
Diary of a Chambermaid is a 1964 French–Italian drama film directed by Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Buñuel and starring Jeanne Moreau as a Parisian chambermaid who uses her body and wiles to navigate the perversion, corruption, and violence she encounters at the provincial estate where she goes to work. Though highly satirical and reflective of his typical anti-bourgeois sentiments, it is one of Buñuel's more realistic films, and generally avoids the outlandish surrealist imagery and far-fetched plot twists found in many of his other works. The film was the first screenwriting collaboration between Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, who extensively reworked the 1900 novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau. Buñuel and Carrière would go on to collaborate on Belle de Jour (1967), The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).
Osavurio: Ai wa Matte Kurenai is Kaori Iida's first studio album as a solo artist of Hello! Project and her first album covering songs in European languages. It contains her own rendition of popular European classical songs, such as "La Vie en Rose" and "Garota de Ipanema." It was released on April 23, 2003, when she was still a member of the idol group, Morning Musume.
The Molière Award recognises achievement in live French theatre and is the national theatre award of France. The Molière Awards are considered the highest French theatre honour. The awards are presented and decided by the Association professionnelle et artistique du théâtre (APAT) and supported by the Ministry of Culture at an annual ceremony, called the Nuit des Molières in Paris. The awards are given for French productions and performances.
The 8th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best French films of 1982 and took place on 26 February 1983 at Le Grand Rex in Paris. The ceremony was chaired by Catherine Deneuve and hosted by Jean-Claude Brialy. La Balance won the award for Best Film.
The 10th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best French films of 1984 and took place on 3 February 1985 at the Théâtre de l'Empire in Paris. The ceremony was chaired by Simone Signoret and hosted by Pierre Tchernia. My New Partner won the award for Best Film.
Anne Vernon is a retired French actress. She appeared in 40 films between 1948 and 1970, including three films that were entered into the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. She is perhaps best known today for her role as Madame Emery, the umbrella-shop owner, in Jacques Demy's 1964 musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, starring Catherine Deneuve. She was born in Saint-Denis.
Léonie Juliana, Baroness Cooreman, also known by her stage name Annie Cordy, was a Belgian actress and singer. She appeared in more than 50 films from 1954 and staged many memorable appearances at Bruno Coquatrix' famous Paris Olympia. Her version of "La Ballade de Davy Crockett" was number 1 in the charts for five weeks in France in August 1956. She was born in Laeken, Belgium, where in 2004, King Albert II of Belgium bestowed upon her the title of Baroness in recognition for her life's achievements.
La Marie du port is a 1950 French drama film directed by Marcel Carné and starring Jean Gabin, Blanchette Brunoy and Nicole Courcel. The screenplay was written by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Jacques Prévert, based on the 1938 novel of the same title by Georges Simenon. The music score is by Joseph Kosma and the cinematography by Henri Alekan. It was made at the Saint-Maurice Studios in Paris and on location around Cherbourg in Normandy. The film marked a comeback for Carné after the poor reception of his previous film Gates of the Night in 1946 and several subsequent unsuccessful attempts to launch projects.
Sous le signe du lion is a Quebec television series comprising thirty 30-minute episodes, directed by Jean-Pierre Sénécal and broadcast in 1961. A two-season remake was broadcast in 1997 and in 2000. The original screenplay was written by Françoise Loranger. Hélène Pedneault adapted it in 1997 and Guy Fournier in 2000. The 1997 adaptation was directed by Maude Martin, and the 2000 by Yvon Trudel.
The Globes de Cristal Awards is a set of awards bestowed by members of the French Press Association recognizing excellence in home art and culture. The annual formal ceremony and dinner at which the awards are presented happens each February.
Three Seats for the 26th is a 1988 French romantic musical film, written and directed by Jacques Demy to music by Michel Legrand. Set in Marseille, it shows the singer and actor Yves Montand returning to the city where he grew up and looking up old friends, including his first love Mylène, who had been a prostitute and is now the wife of a jailed baron. The purpose of his visit is to rehearse a stage musical based on his life, where the female lead he falls in love with is Marion, the daughter Mylène had after they parted. It was Demy's last picture.
The Affair of the Poisons is a 1955 French-Italian historical drama film directed by Henri Decoin and starring Danielle Darrieux, Viviane Romance and Paul Meurisse. The film is adapted from the 1907 play of the same title by Victorien Sardou. It was shot in Technicolor at the Boulogne Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jean d'Eaubonne. The film is set against the backdrop of the real Affair of the Poisons in seventeenth century France, and demonstrates a darker tone than many more nostalgic depictions of the past.
