''Paris, je t'aime'' (; ''Paris, I love you'') is a 2006

anthology film An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film, package film, or portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme ...

starring an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to ...

of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s set in different

arrondissements An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands. Europe France The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements'', ...

(districts). The 22 directors include

Gurinder Chadha Gurinder Chadha, (born 10 January 1960) is a British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme among her work showcases the trials of Indian women living in the UK and ho ...

Sylvain Chomet Sylvain Chomet (; born 10 November 1963) is a French comic writer, animator and film director. Early career Born in Maisons-Laffitte, Seine-et-Oise (now Yvelines), near Paris, he studied art at high school until he graduated in 1982. Chomet ...

Joel and Ethan Coen Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957),State of Minnesota. ''Minnesota Birth Index, 1935–2002''. Minnesota Department of Health. collectively known as the Coen brothers (), are American film ...

Isabel Coixet Isabel Coixet Castillo (; born 9 April 1960 ) is a Spanish film director. She is one of the most prolific film directors of contemporary Spain, having directed twelve feature-length films since the beginning of her film career in 1988, in additio ...

Gérard Depardieu Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu, CQ (, , ; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor, filmmaker, businessman and vineyard owner since 1989 who is one of the most prolific thespians in film history having completed over 250 films since 1967 alm ...

Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...

Alfonso Cuarón Alfonso Cuarón Orozco ( , ; born 28 November 1961) is a Mexican filmmaker. He is known for directing films in a variety of genres including the family drama ''A Little Princess (1995 film), A Little Princess'' (1995), the romantic drama ''Gre ...

Nobuhiro Suwa is a Japanese film director working in Japan and France. His directorial works and screenplays often make use of improvisation techniques. Currently, Suwa is the President of Tokyo Zokei University. Biography Having graduated from Hirosh ...

Alexander Payne Constantine Alexander Payne (; born February 10, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for the films ''Citizen Ruth'' (1996), ''Election'' (1999), ''About Schmidt'' (2002), ''Sideways'' (2004), ''The Desc ...

Tom Tykwer Tom Tykwer (; born 23 May 1965) is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing the thriller films ''Run Lola Run'' (1998), ''Heaven (2002 film), Heaven'' (2002), ''Perfume: The St ...

Walter Salles Walter Moreira Salles Júnior (; born 12 April 1956) is a Brazilian filmmaker. Early life Salles was born on 12 April 1956 in Rio de Janeiro and attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He is the son of Brazil ...

Yolande Moreau Yolande Moreau (born 27 February 1953) is a Belgian comedian, actress, film director and screenwriter. She has won three César Awards from four nominations. Career She made her cinematic debut with director Agnès Varda in two movies: Sept pi� ...

, and

Gus Van Sant Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician. He has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultur ...

Production

Julio Medem Julio Medem Lafont (born 21 October 1958) is a Basque film director, producer, editor, and screenwriter. Biography Medem was born on 21 October 1958 in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain and showed an interest in movies since childhood, when ...

was attached to the project for a long time. He was supposed to direct one of the segments starring

Javier Bardem Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. Known for his roles in Blockbuster (entertainment), blockbusters and foreign films, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the psychopath, ...

et Maria Valverde, but this finally fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of '' Caótica Ana'' (2007). ''Paris, je t'aime'' is the first feature film to be fully scanned in 6K and mastered in 4K in Europe (as opposed to the normal 2K). Encoding the image took about 24 hours per reel (at Laboratoires Éclair). Both Emmanuel Benbihy and Gilles Caussade served as executive producers on the project. As the film is a collection of shorter segments, there were also producers attached to each episode of the project.

Arrondissements

Initially, 20 short films representing the 20

arrondissements of Paris The Paris, City of Paris is divided into twenty ''Municipal arrondissements of France, arrondissements municipaux'', administrative districts, more simply referred to as ''arrondissements'' (). These are not to be confused with departmental arro ...

were planned, but two of them (the 15th arrondissement, directed by

Christoffer Boe Christoffer Boe (born 1974) is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is an established and well-known not only in Denmark, but all through the world. Among his international awards there are FIPRESCI Director of the Year at San Sebastián ...

, and the 11th arrondissement, by Raphaël Nadjari) were not included in the final film because they could not be properly integrated into it. Each arrondissement is followed by a few images of Paris; these transition sequences were written by Emmanuel Benbihy and directed by Benbihy with Frédéric Auburtin. Including Benbihy, there were 22 directors involved in the finished film.

Release

The film premiered at the

2006 Cannes Film Festival The 59th Cannes Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 May 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official selection Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the ...

on 18 May, opening the ''

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...

'' selection. It had its

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on 10 September and its US premiere in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

on 9 April 2007. First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the United States on 4 May 2007.

Reception

''Paris, je t'aime'' received generally positive reviews. It currently holds an 86% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 112 reviews, with an average score of 7.1/10. The site's consensus states: "''Paris je t'aime'' is uneven, but there are more than enough delightful moments in this omnibus tribute to the City of Lights to tip the scale in its favor."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gives the film a 66/100 rating based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Influence

Following the success of ''Paris, je t'aime'', a similarly structured film, ''

New York, I Love You ''New York, I Love You'' is a 2008 American romantic comedy-drama anthology film consisting of eleven short films, each by a different director. The shorts all relate in some way to the subject of love, and are set among the five boroughs of New ...

'', focusing on life in that city, premiered at the 2008

and was released in a limited number of theatres in 2009. A third entry in the series, '' Rio, Eu Te Amo'', was released in 2014. ''

Berlin, I Love You ''Berlin, I Love You'' is a 2019 anthology romantic drama film starring an ensemble cast. A joint German and U.S. production, it serves as an installment of the ''Cities of Love'', series created by Emmanuel Benbihy. It was released on Febru ...

'' followed this later in 2019.

References

External links

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Press kit
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Paris, Je T'aime 2006 films 2006 black comedy films 2006 LGBT-related films 2006 romantic comedy-drama films 2000s Arabic-language films 2000s English-language films English-language French films Films directed by Alexander Payne Films directed by Alfonso Cuarón Films directed by Bruno Podalydès Films directed by the Coen brothers Films directed by Daniela Thomas Films directed by Gérard Depardieu Films directed by Gurinder Chadha Films directed by Gus Van Sant Films directed by Isabel Coixet Films directed by Nobuhiro Suwa Films directed by Oliver Schmitz Films directed by Olivier Assayas Films directed by Richard LaGravenese Films directed by Sylvain Chomet Films directed by Tom Tykwer Films directed by Vincenzo Natali Films directed by Walter Salles Films directed by Wes Craven Films set in Paris Films shot in Paris Films with screenplays by Gurinder Chadha Films with screenplays by Paul Mayeda Berges Films with screenplays by Vincenzo Natali French anthology films French black comedy films 2000s French-language films French LGBT-related films French romantic comedy-drama films German anthology films German black comedy films German LGBT-related films German romantic comedy-drama films Human-vampire romance in fiction LGBT-related horror films 2000s Mandarin-language films 2000s Spanish-language films Swiss anthology films Swiss LGBT-related films Swiss romantic comedy-drama films French vampire films 2006 multilingual films 2000s French films 2000s German films