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NEWS: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
2007 |

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31 December
2007 |
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Before
I wrap up 2007, I have several old but interesting additions to post
from the past year. On April 26 of this year, the UGS (The Union
Guilde des Scénaristes) presented its first "Jacques Prevert Script
Prize" to the best French original and adapted screenplays of 2006
according to a jury led by Vincent. Since a good script is essential
to make a good film, the UGS is determined to restore the screenplay
to its rightful position at the heart of the filmmaking industry in
France and French-speaking countries, highlighting its importance at
the economic, cultural and media levels. Following in the footsteps
of Catherine Deneuve, Vincent also became this year's honorary
president of Writers Days sponsored by the UGS The event took
place during the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in May. When co-president
Jerome Soubeyrand made the proposal, Vincent accepted immediately,
feeling very honored to defend the importance of the screenplay. In
an interview with magazine Le Film Francais, he was asked why
he participated in these events. He replied that it gave him the
opportunity to meet with French scriptwriters and join their fight
to be recognized for their contribution. He added that in France, a
script takes up 1% of a film's budget against 14% in the United
States. He believes Americans have high respect for screenwriters as
well as for producers and directors. Here's a photo from the Cannes
event:

Gaston Kaboré, Zoé Félix, Pavel
Lounguine, Renato Berta, Vincent Perez (in the
hat), Etgar Keret, Claude Lanzmann,
Jérôme Soubeyran, Julie Delpy, Philippe Bastard de Crisnay, Sara
Forestier, Manuel Alduy et Ken Burns.

Through its foundation, Swiss
watch manufacturer Zenith and AVEC (Association for Life and Hope
Against Cancer) hosted a charity event on February 5, 2007 at the
Château de Versailles. Among the 750 guests were Vincent along with
wife Karine and stepdaughter Roxane Depardieu. The photo on the
right shows Vincent with Zenith president Thierry Nataf. The evening
began with a recital followed by a visit to the Royal Apartments and
finally dinner in the Galerie des Batailles.
In a 2004 interview with La Revue Masculin,
Vincent answered these quick questions, a bit like James Lipton (Inside
the Actor's Studio).
- The principal feature of your character?
Curiosity.
- The quality you prefer in a man?
Uprightness.
- The quality you prefer in a woman?
Honesty.
- A happy reverie? Hearing my children play
the piano in our country house or having dinner with friends
around the kitchen table.
- A historical figure? Mozart.
- A hero of today? Muhammad Ali.
- A bedside book? Seul dans Berlin
by Hans Fallada.
- A film you love? American Beauty.
- A song that stays with you? "No, woman,
no cry" by Bob Marley.
- World city? New York.
- Holiday place? Corsica.
- Parisien bar? L'Avenue.
- Preferred dish? Des Penne alla rabiata,
tres al dente!
- Preferred drink? Wine.
- A perfume? Any Guerlain, Mouchoir, in
particular.
- Clothing? Jeans.
- Object? Camera.


There are some video
interviews from the past year that you might want to check out. The
first one is with
Soluble Dans L'air dated May 10th from TV5 in France. The
video is about 12 minutes and features an interview with Vincent on
the Left Bank with host Olivier Philippe. Vincent discusses his
films but also does a segment with illustrator Tiburce Oger on their
comic book La Fôret.
On May 3rd Vincent was
on
the TV show La
Méthode Cauet and
a couple short videos feature some backstage footage. He was on the
show again on October 4th, but I have no video or photos. You may
remember Vincent was on Cauet's radio show times back in 2003.
And the last video is from
LCI on TF1 dated October 11th which was done in conjunction
with the premiere of Si j'étais toi.
It's a short video and shows him at
his laptop fielding questions from the Internet.
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28 December
2007 |
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Arn - The Knight Templar
achieved the biggest opening ever for a Swedish film when it was
unwrapped on Christmas Day. In its first two days, the picture
pulled in 160,310 admissions with a gross of $2,240,000 from 207
screens. It will be some time before audiences outside the
Nordic Region will get a chance to see it. The international
version, a combination of the current film and the sequel, will not
be released until next year, but has already been sold to ten countries,
among them Russia, China and Brazil. Svensk and sales agent Telepool
will continue to market the film at Berlin and Cannes. Commenting on
the opening box office figures, producer Valdemar Bergendahl told
Variety: “It is fantastic. We had expected high figures, but
this exceeds our expectations.” The Swedish reviews ranged from
positive to negative with the majority falling somewhere in-between.
Bergendal said: “It was expected. But I’m happy with all the copy
that has been written about the film. It has shown what great
interest there is in it.” The film's premiere took place in both
Skara and Stockholm the week before Christmas but Vincent did not
attend either event. If you
follow this link, you can view a program from Swedish TV on
the making of the film, which includes a few of Vincent's scenes as
well as a brief interview with him in English!

 If
you've noticed Vincent's name in the news these days, it's because
ex-girlfriend Carla Bruni has been making headlines as the
new love interest of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who
divorced his wife in October. Earlier this month the couple were
spotted at Disneyland Paris with the French press reporting that
obviously this very public appearance was supposedly an announcement
that they are together. Sporting dark sunglasses and holding hands,
Sarkozy and Bruni were last spotted arriving in Luxor, Egypt for a
private visit, staying at the Winter Palace. Carla was born into a
wealthy Italian family, but grew up in France from the age of five
and later attended boarding school in Switzerland. She eventually
returned to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at
19 to become a model full-time. In 1997, Carla quit the world of
fashion, and has since devoted herself to music. She was previously
married to philosophy professor Raphaël Enthoven and has a
six-year-old son named Aurélien. She dated Vincent in 1994 and he
has continued to maintain a close relationship with both her and her
actress sister, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. In 2002, Carla's debut album
"Quelqu'un m'a dit", was released in Europe to great success. Her
second album, "No Promises" containing poems by Yeats, Emily
Dickinson, Auden, Dorothy Parker, Walter de la Mare, and Christina
Rosetti, set to music, was released in January 2007. In conjunction
with this CD release, four videos were also created by none other
than Vincent. You can view these exclusive videos at
Carla's web site. Explaining her choice of men, Carla once
said, "The one thing all the men I've dated have in common is a
strong feminine side. I find feminine men very virile and macho men
very fragile." Her list of past lovers also includes Mick Jagger and
Eric Clapton.
 According
to W magazine, by February 1995 the romance between
Vincent and Carla was over and with the release of
Queen Margot, Vincent was "flooded with fan
mail from his adorers in the U.S." Apparently, it didn't take long
before he and Karine were becoming more than friends as seen on the
cover of the January 16, 1995 issue of Voici magazine. His
first publicized romance was with actress Jacqueline Bisset. The two
had met in 1989 on the set of La Maison de
Jade and quickly became lovers, though Ms. Bisset was almost
20 years older. At the time he was quoted as saying, "I've rarely
met a woman like her. I love women in the 40s. They make me feel
more sure of myself." Between her film-acting tips and
words of support, Vincent claims that she helped
him a lot with a real generosity. He says, "She made me discover
Bergman's actresses, American movies, the American way of working...
And for the first time I realized that light can transmit certain
emotions. She changed my vision of light." Ms. Bisset continues her
film career today at 63 years old. She has never married and has
been quoted as saying, "marriage takes the romance out of a
relationship." I recently came across these
new photos of the gorgeous couple at several premieres and the
Academy Awards. I don't know if she's ever gone under the knife, but
amazingly, she's hardly changed over the years and is still a beauty
today.
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25 December
2007 |
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Today
Arn - The Knight Templar, the most expensive Scandinavian
production ever, will premiere in Sweden, with the Norwegian
premiere set for Boxing Day. The ambitious project had a total
budget of over 32 million and entails not one but two films,
with the other film, called "Arn - The Kingdom at the End of the
Road", scheduled to premiere in late 2008. The
material will also be used for a six-part TV series that will be
aired on Sweden's TV4 in 2009. Vincent's scenes as Brother
Guilbert are in the first film when he plays mentor to the
young Arn, who is raised in a monastery during the second half of
the 12th century. The epic is directed by Danish director Peter
Flinth and is based on the bestselling Crusades trilogy of novels by
Swedish author Jan Guillou. Though the books have been bestsellers
in Scandinavia and several other European countries including
Germany, it remains to be seen whether the cinema-going public is
ready for a Crusades epic so shortly after the lukewarm reception of
Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven", in which heartthrob Orlando
Bloom was sent off to the Holy Land. However, the yarn of Arn comes
with a very different angle and the unusual combination of the cold
and damp northern reaches of Europe and the scouring heat of the
Holy Land. Besides Joakim Nätterqvist and Sofia Helin as the lead
stars, the film's cast includes some of the Skarsgård acting clan,
including father Stellan as Birger Brosa, son Gustaf as Knut
Eriksson with his brothers Valter and Bill playing his sons. Further
talent on board includes Bibi
Andersson, Jakob Cedergren, Simon Callow, Steven Waddington and
Michael Nyqvist. The film will be released in Sweden on 205 screens
with the Norwegian release on around 70 screens, while the
Danish and Finnish premieres are scheduled for January 11 and
January 22, 2008 respectively.
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16 November 2007 |
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On November 10th Vincent took
his family to Disyneyland Paris to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
Here are some photos taken that day at the premiere of "Enchanted".

It has come to my attention that there are
some
unscrupulous folks out there who
apparently think it's
perfectly okay to "plunder" The Vincent
Perez Archives to make videos using this
web site's photos, hundreds of which I have purchased and
taken the time to scan, edit and post over the past eight years.
Though I actually despise the idea of having to
mark photos with "The Vincent Perez Archives",
it is imperative that I continue to do so, because
these unprincipled individuals are just too lazy
and/or cheap to get
their own photos!

Gala
Magazine recently met with Vincent and I have posted
this interview (in French - if
anyone would like to attempt a translation, that would be lovely!) I
have a few snippets that I can share with you. The gist of the
article was how his wife Karine is the centerpiece of his life. He
comments on how he has become dissatisfied with the French cinema
and if he returns, it will be for roles that excite him. That may
account for his decision to sign onto Russian film Apocalypse
Code and the Swedish film Arn. Vincent admits that about three
years ago he felt a little lost and unhappy, and after taking some
advice from good friend, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, he began to
discover his own truth. He claims to be a recluse which, frankly, I
find hard to believe. Karine helps to give his life stability with
her wonderful organization of family affairs. They parent four
children - Roxane (daughter of Gerard Depardieu) is now fifteen,
Iman is eight, and twins Pablo and Tess, are about to turn five this
month. He believes he has a true relationship with each of them.
Though Roxane is very close to her mother, she has been helpful to
her stepfather by offering her drawing talents, specifically with
his comic book. The children's activities take up much of their time
- piano, swimming, dance, horsemanship. When he's free, he shares
the chauffeuring. He describes the six months away from the family
while he was in Canada filming Si j'étais toi
as difficult. When asked about the success of his marriage, he
replies that it is necessary to want to remain together and to know
how to preserve this desire. He also believes it helps that Karine
was his best friend before they married. He finds being spouse and
best friend are both different and complementary and there lies the
answer. I'll second that from my own personal experience.

Karine was recently featured in Elle magazine.
Apparently she and two friends, sisters Marie and Juliette from
Switzerland, have decided to share their talent and create a
venture, which helps to organize parties and other festive events.
The trio are based in the beautiful Saint Honore District in Luc
Besson's production building. FYI, Karine's sister Virginie is
married to Besson, who also owns the Italian canteen Ante Prima,
located in the same building. Marie has a background in interior
design, Juliette is an artist, and Karine, daughter of a Sengalese
diplomat, is both an actress and screenwriter. Together they have
formed "Link" meaning bond, a word which suits them very well. As fête
consultants, they stress ambiance and abundance. When asked whether
working together as intimate friends imposes problems, the three
burst out laughing - "Quite to the contrary!" You have to
wonder where Karine finds all this time considering she has four
children to raise as well. Very remarkable. 
I came across this caricature of Vincent by Gérard Eleouët. I think
it's somewhat harsh and the double image makes me feel like I'm going
a bit cross-eyed. What do you think?
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05 November
2007 |
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The
DVD of Apocalypse Code was
released in Russia on October 25, 2007, just weeks after its
premiere. The Moscow Times
gave it a negative review with "While billed as the local
version of the James Bond franchise, the film has none of that
series' sense of comedy and also fails to create any sense of
emotional engagement." According to Variety, critical reaction to
the film has been distinctly downbeat, generating little
word-of-mouth for promotional purposes. The $15.5 million production
budget and the $3.5 million spent on its advertising campaign
are at the top end for the local industry. Unless international
sales are spectacular, the film will suffer financially. Opening
weekend drew in $3.6 million in Russia and CIS, including Ukraine,
where it was screened in 656 theatres by distributor Karo Prokat.
CODE follows a FSB (KGB successor organization) colonel, a lithe
thirties female operative who crosses the world frantically to
prevent terrorists from detonating nuclear bombs in four capitals.
Her main opponent turns out to be a Franco-Arabic banker, played by
our favorite thespian. On November 6th, Vincent and his wife
attended the film's premiere in Paris during the Russian Film
Festival.
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