The French cinema industry has recently lost one of its pillars: the successful director and producer Claude Berri passed away on 12th January. From 22nd to 30th April, Ciné Lumière pays tribute to his work.

JEAN DE FLORETTE

France/Switzerland/Italy | 1986 | col | dir. Claude Berri, with Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Béart | cert. PG

Wed 22 Apr | 3.00pm | 120 min | TB1

In the mid-20s, hunchback tax collector Jean Cadoret inherits a farm in Provence. The map shows a valuable spring on his land, but his neighbours, the cunning Soubeyrans, have stopped it up...

For a while Jean de Florette and its sequel were the most successful foreign films in British box-office history, and deservedly so. An adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's novel L'Eau des Collines, Jean de Florette is, quite simply, a tour de force. Berri's direction taps into the book's rich emotions and captures both the pace of the changing seasons and the unique atmosphere of Provence.

 

MANON DES SOURCES

Wed 22 Apr | 6pm | 113 min | TB2

Ten years later, Jean's beautiful daughter Marion (Béart) wreaks a terrible revenge on her father's destroyers.

 

LE CINEMA DE PAPA

France | 1970 | col | 100 mins | dir. Claude Berri, with Claude Berri, Alain Cohen | cert. 15

Berri's film takes its title from Truffaut's dismissive term for old-school cinema ('father's filmmaking'), something that – in Berri's mind – was to be celebrated not buried. Featuring Berri as himself, this intensely personal film explores the director's youth and adolescence, when he was forced to choose between a career in movies or in the family fur business.

Wed 22 Apr | 8.40pm | TB3

Sun 26 Apr |  2.00pm as part of Sunday French Classics

Thu 30 Apr | 3.00pm