Production
Claude Berri
Claude Berri (1 July 1934 – 12 January 2009) was a French film director, producer, screenwriter, distributor and actor.
Berri was a leading figure of the French film industry both a director and as a producer. Following a short film that won an Academy Award, Berri achieved success with his first feature film, The Two of Us (1967). He then had a varied career, producing and distributing both mainstream and avant-garde films. During the 1970s, Berri's films as a director were mostly comedies but he later found increased success with several high-profile literary adaptations. In 1986, his two-part film Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring won public and critical acclaim, becoming his best-known work. He next directed Uranus (1990) and most notably Germinal (1993). In 1997, he directed the historical biopic Lucie Aubrac.
Directors whose films were produced by Berri include Roman Polanski, Jacques Demy, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Claude Sautet, Miloš Forman, Claude Zidi, Jacques Rivette, Patrice Chéreau, Alain Chabat, Abdellatif Kechiche and Dany Boon.
Born Claude Beri Langmann in Paris, Berri was the son of Jewish immigrant parents. His mother, Beila (née Bercu), was from Romania, and his father, Hirsch Langmann, was a furrier from Poland. In 1943, during the Nazi occupation of France, Berri's parents entrusted him for his safety to a family in the countryside. He spent the rest of the occupation being fostered by "an antisemitic couple" who were unaware that he was Jewish. His sister, screenwriter and editor Arlette Langmann, was born after the war.
Berri's original vocation was to be an actor. He began a career in the early 1950s but struggled to find roles, which prompted him to turn to directing and eventually producing. In 1965, he gained notice for The Chicken, which won the Award for best short film at the 38th Academy Awards.
In 1967, Berri directed The Two of Us (Le Vieil homme et l'enfant), a partially autobiographical film that told the story of a Jewish child, entrusted during World War II to a benevolent and antisemitic old farmer who remains unaware that the boy he is caring for is a Jew. The film was a great success in France and abroad. Berri also adapted the story into a novel, released the same year as the film.
During the years that followed, Berri became active as a producer and film distributor while continuing to direct his own films. Also in 1967, with his associate (later brother-in-law) Jean-Pierre Rassam, Berri bought the international distribution rights for Miloš Forman's The Firemen's Ball which was a great success and was nominated to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Berri's company, Renn Productions, which he had founded to produce The Two of Us, gradually became a major player in the French film industry. ...
Source: Article "Claude Berri" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Claude Berri
Vivement dimanche
Midi Première
Midi Première is a French variety show presented by Danièle Gilbert, directed by Jacques Pierre and broadcast f...
Spécial cinéma
Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema...
Le Grand Échiquier
Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at...
Nulle part ailleurs
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
History's favorite Gauls assist Queen Cleopatra when she wagers that the Egyptian people can build a palace for...
Cadet Rousselle
Les Nuls, l'émission
Un film et son époque
French Cancan
Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-r...
The Seven Deadly Sins
Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument ov...
Germinal
It's mid 19th century, north of France. The story of a coal miner's town. They are exploited by the mine's owne...
Didier
Jean-Pierre Costa is a football manager upon whom fate appears not to be smiling. First, a friend, Annabelle, d...
The Truth
As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a...
The Wounded Man
A fleeting encounter in a train station draws a withdrawn young man into a shadowy world of desire and danger....
Behold a Pale Horse
Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his...
The Sleeping Car Murders
Six people travel by overnight train from Marseilles to Paris. When they arrive, one of them, a young woman, is...
Zazie dans le Métro
A brash and precocious ten-year-old comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle.
Line of Demarcation
It is based on upon the memoir Mémoires d'un agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation by Gilb...
Please, Not Now!
A sexy model pretends to have a new boyfriend in a wacky plan to make her ex-lover jealous.
Happily Ever After
Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two...
The Three Brothers
Three half-brothers are reunited at their mother's funeral. After being told of their inheritance they quickly...
Stan the Flasher
Claude Berri, who usually participates in films by directing them, here returns to the screen as Stan, an over-...
Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
After finding love and success in Italy, French actress Camille returns to Paris, the city she fled three years...
The Machine
This deftly made French psychological thriller terrifies with its exploration of an experiment gone horribly wr...
Urgent ou à quoi bon exécuter des projets puisque le projet est en lui-même une jouissance suffisante
Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Cou...
The Car Keys
Who would think losing car keys could lead us that far ? Be careful, adventure is on every street corner...
Sex Shop
On the advice of a friend, Claude, married to the charming Isabelle and father of two, decided to transform his...
Greed
A group of university students in Paris dream of a night of love with Suzon, whose rates are staggering. To rai...
Le Roi des cons
Georges Le Roi lives odd jobs and shares his life between two girlfriends. One day, he falls in love with Sophi...
I Spit on Your Grave
Joe Grant, a light-skinned African American, heads to a small Southern town to investigate the lynching death o...
Good Lord Without Confession
Stuck in a loveless marriage, bourgeois industrialist Francois falls in love with Janine, another man's wife. F...
Les Bonnes Femmes
Four Parisian women navigate the world of romance and daily life looking to fulfill their dreams.
On the Trail of the New Wave
Le Cinema de Papa
Claude Berri plays himself as he relates his own experiences through youth and adolescence. His father owns a p...