FRANCE
2010 / WORLD PREMIERE
1H45 / IN FRENCH
Synopsis
Babou seems to be able to shrug off anything. Real jobs, husbands, responsibilities, who needs them? But when she finds out that her own daughter is too ashamed of her to invite her to her wedding, she decides to make some changes. She takes a job selling time-share flats at the Belgian seaside during the off-season, and even to her own surprise, becomes the model employee. Eventually Babou once again gets in the way of her success, and she must find a way to get a wedding gift worthy of her daughter yet true to her one-of-a-kind self.
director: Marc Fitoussi
screenplay: Marc Fitoussi
cinematography: Hélène Louvart
sound: Olivier Le Vacon
editing: Martine Giordano
production design: Michel Barthélémy
music: Tim Gane & Sean O’Hagan
cast:
Isabelle Huppert
Lolita Chammah
Aure Atika
Jurgen Delnaet
Chantal Banlier
Magali Woch
Nelly Antignac
Guillaume Gouix
Joachim Lombard
Noémie Lvovsky
Luis Rego
François Comard
production
AVENUE B PRODUCTIONS
Caroline Bonmarchand
Tel. +33 (0)1 48 00 02 35
caroline@avenuebprod.com
distribution
MARS DISTRIBUTION
Stéphane Célerier
Tel. +33 (0)1 56 43 67 29
scelerier@marsfilms.com
sales
KINOLOGY
Grégoire Melin
Tel. +33 (0)1 48 24 48 71
gmelin@kinology.eu
French press
André Paul Ricci
Mob. + 33 (0)6 12 44 30 62
apricci@wanadoo.fr
International press
Magali Montet
Magali@magalimontet.com
contact Cannes
AVENUE B PRODUCTIONS
Caroline Bonmarchand
Mob. + 33(0) 6 22 14 20 19
caroline@avenuebprod.com
Xenia Sulyma
Mob + 33(0) 6 03 48 79 09
xenia@avenuebprod.com
Portrait
Copacabana by Sophie Grassin
COPACABANA, as its title doesn’t say, takes place somewhere between Tourcoing’s bricks and Ostende’s beaches. This is where Babou (Isabelle Huppert, present in almost every shot) has fun on Brasilian music, wears sari or learn sales techniques to sell apartment off to some tourists. Sometimes, you look, euh… crazy her daughter Esmeralda (Lolita Chammah), who chose a reasonable life by reaction to her mother, tells her. Crazy, no. But free, cheeky and generous ’til insecurity or thoughtlessness, yes. I wouldn’t take her as a model, analyses the director Marc Fitoussi, because her recklessness doesn’t serve any kind of moral message. This character is an outsider suddenly put in a so-called “normal” universe. Babou stands up to social efficiency obligations. But COPACABANA also denounces a professional environment that uses sidelined people to make them repeat a misleading promotional discourse. Today’s victims, they’ll be tomorrow’s executioners as well. The director resumes one of his themes, already explored in Bonbon au poivre, one of his first short films (2005) and do it via a Comedy genre, already approached in his first choral film, La Vie d’Artiste. Here, it sometimes yields to melancholy: Huppert’s eyes, reddened by her daughter’s rejection, the wrecked face of the actress after being laid off. COPACABANA pays tribute to all those adults who make their lives a real playground and give no place to mistrust and resentment sums up Fitoussi.