Director and Star Discuss the Sequel to Their International Hit L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) with New Yorkers In Two Afternoons Moderated by Flavorpill's Lisa Rosman
RUSSIAN DOLLS filmmaker Cédric Klapisch and star Romain Duris will take part in live on-screen iQ&As at the IFC Center on Saturday, May 13 and Sunday, May 14 at the 2:05 shows for the opening weekend of their latest collaboration. The sequel to the international hit L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment), RUSSIAN DOLLS catches up with Xavier (Duris, also the star of The Beat My Heart Skipped) and his crew from Barcelona as they face the prospect of turning 30 and settling down. Klapisch and Duris will both participate in the video iChat on Saturday following the 2:05 show, with Klapisch returning on Sunday following the 2:05 show as well. Both afternoons' discussions will be led by Flavorpill movie critic Lisa Rosman, before opening up for audience members' questions.
This is the second in an ongoing program of "IFC Center iQ&A's," a series that brings international filmmakers together with New York audiences, in real time, via Apple's innovative videoconferencing software, iChat. Through a simple high-speed internet connection and two of Apple's iSight webcams, a moderator onstage at the IFC Center in the Village and a filmmaker half a world away can hold a live conversation, with the video of their chat projected onto the theater's screen and with moviegoers free to pose questions directly to the filmmaker. The series was inaugurated with an iQ&A with Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier in January for the opening of his latest, MANDERLAY, and was rebroadcast on Salon.com.
Cédric Klapisch attended film school at New York University (located only blocks from the IFC Center) in 1982 and began working in the United States on short films from 1983-1985, first as a camera operator and then as a director. In the following years, he returned to France and from 1985-88, directed a number of industrial films and documentary segments for French television. Klapisch made his first feature in 1992, RIENS DU TOUT with Fabrice Luchini and later directed the box office hit, WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY (1996). In 2002 he completed the international sensation L'AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE. Klapisch has also taught at La Fémis in Paris, the Masters program at Columbia University's film school, the City College of New York, and the School of Visual Arts in 2003 for a program called On Set With French Cinema.
Romain Duris is one of France's most noted young actors. He has appeared regularly in the films of Tony Gatlif, such as his Cannes prizewinner EXILES (2004) and GADJO DILO (1997). He also had a role in the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of the popular novel LE DIVORCE (2003) and starred in Jacques Audiard's critically acclaimed THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED (2005), reprising a role originated by Harvey Keitel in James Toback's FINGERS. But his best-known work remains the series of films he has made with Cédric Klapisch over the course of more than a decade, from LE PERIL JEUNE (1994), to WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY (1996), L'AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE (2002) and now RUSSIAN DOLLS.