Two legends of French cinema will alight in Los Angeles this weekend. Director Bertrand Blier and actress Nathalie Baye are in town to promote their new films and will mark their first appearances ever at the 15th annual City of Lights, City of Angels film festival. It opened this past Monday and runs through Monday, April 18.
A tribute honoring Blier, 72, has long been a passion of festival director and programmer Francois Truffart. Blier’s “Get Out Your Handkerchiefs” (1978) brought France the foreign-language film Academy Award. “I was just waiting for the right film, and I knew his film, ‘The Clink of Ice,’ had been released in France,” Truffart has said. “I thought I would show the film to an American audience. It was a rare opportunity to make a focus on him.”
Blier will participate in a Q&A following a screening of “The Clink of Ice” on Thursday night. “Age hasn’t tempered Blier’s desire to spark controversy,” notes the Los Angeles Times. His new film follows a conversation between a dying alcoholic writer who is confronted by a stranger claiming to be the writer’s cancer.
The Times describes Baye as “an ageless 62” years old. She has worked continually onscreen since the early ’70s for directors as wide-ranging as Francois Truffaut and Steven Spielberg.
“She is very popular, and she plays in different kinds of films,” Truffart observes. “She’s amazing.” Her new film is “Beautiful Lies,” a comedy in which she plays the mother of Audrey Tatou. It screens Saturday.
Baye is happy to spend most of her time shooting films in Europe, where over-40 female actors can find plenty of work. “Since cinema is supposed to talk about life and represent life, life doesn’t stop at 40,” she says. “I have the privilege of being one of the French actors like Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant who are constantly in demand.”
Trivia note: Although this week will mark Blier’s first appearance at the City of Lights, City of Angels festival, he is not new to Los Angeles. He attended the Oscars the night his film won. “Francis Ford Coppola put his hand on my shoulder and told me to ‘stay and work with us,'” he recalls. However, ” ‘I ran very fast. It scared me. I told my producer I am doing the film I wanted to do. I was coming back with my Oscar under my arms, and when you come back with your Oscar in France no one ever tells you ‘No.'”
CLICK HERE for the LATimes.com article.
CLICK HERE for the City of Lights, City of Angels festival website.