''Paris, je t'aime'' (; ) is a 2006
anthology film starring an
ensemble cast
In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many 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 the po ...
of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen
short film
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...
s set in different ''
arrondissements'' (districts). The 22 directors include
Gurinder Chadha,
Sylvain Chomet,
Joel and Ethan Coen,
Isabel Coixet,
Gérard Depardieu,
Wes Craven,
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco ( ; ; born 28 November 1961) is a Mexican filmmaker. List of awards and nominations received by Alfonso Cuarón, His accolades include four Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and seven BAFTA Awards.
Cuarón made h ...
,
Nobuhiro Suwa,
Alexander Payne
Constantine Alexander Payne (born February 10, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is noted for his satire, satirical depictions of contemporary American society. Payne has received List of awards and nominations rec ...
,
Tom Tykwer,
Walter Salles,
Yolande Moreau and
Gus Van Sant. It was the first film in the ''
Cities of Love'' franchise.
Production
Film director
Julio Medem was attached to the project for a long time. He was supposed to direct one of the segments starring
Javier Bardem and
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 Claudie Ossard and
Emmanuel Benbihy served as producers on the project, while
Gilles Caussade acted as an executive producer. 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 were planned, but two of them (the
15th ''arrondissement'', directed by
Christoffer Boe, 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 on 18 May, opening the ''
Un Certain Regard'' selection.
It had its Canadian premiere at the
2006 Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September and its US premiere in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
, on 9 April 2007. ''Paris, je t'aime'' was released theatrically in France on 21 June 2006 by La Fabrique de Films, in Switzerland on 13 September 2006 by Ascot Elite Entertainment Group and in Germany on 25 January 2007 by
Senator Film.
First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights in September 2006, and the film opened in New York City on 4 May 2007, before expanding to other American cities including Los Angeles on 18 May.
Reception
''Paris, je t'aime'' received generally positive reviews. On the
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 112 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Paris Je T'aime'' is uneven, but there are more than enough delightful moments in this omnibus tribute to the City of Light to tip the scale in its favor."
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which uses a
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, 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'', focusing on life in that city, premiered at the
2008 Toronto International Film Festival and received a
limited theatrical release in 2009. The third and fourth entries in the series, ''
Tbilisi, I Love You'' and ''
Rio, I Love You'', were released in 2014. ''
Berlin, I Love You'' followed in 2019.
References
External links
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Press kit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paris, Je T'aime
2006 films
2006 black comedy films
2006 LGBTQ-related films
2006 romantic comedy-drama films
2000s Arabic-language films
2000s English-language films
2000s French films
2000s French-language films
2000s German films
2000s Mandarin-language films
2000s Spanish-language films
English-language French films
English-language German films
English-language Swiss films
Fiction about human–vampire romance
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 the Coen brothers
Films with screenplays by Gurinder Chadha
Films with screenplays by Paul Mayeda Berges
Films with screenplays by Richard LaGravenese
Films with screenplays by Vincenzo Natali
Films with screenplays by Wes Craven
French anthology films
French black comedy films
French LGBTQ-related films
French romantic comedy-drama films
French vampire films
French-language German films
French-language Swiss films
German anthology films
German black comedy films
German LGBTQ-related films
German romantic comedy-drama films
German vampire films
LGBTQ-related romantic comedy-drama films
Swiss anthology films
Swiss LGBTQ-related films
Swiss romantic comedy-drama films
Vampire comedy films
English-language romantic comedy-drama films