Claude Berri is surely the only French filmmaker to have won an Academy Award at the very start of his career—for his 1962 short Le Poulet. A veritable film industry impresario, in addition to directing 21 films, he produced 58 features, and set up distribution company AMLF in 1973. Berri broke into films with small acting roles in movies by Chabrol, Becker, Clouzot, and Renoir among others, and continued to act throughout his career; initially he was a triple-threat actor-writer-director, playing a character called Claude in five semi-autobiographical comedy-dramas. Firmly ensconced in the mainstream, his directing career couldn’t be further from the New Wave and post-New Wave cinema. While a handful of his early films received U.S. distribution, most of his light comedy dramas of the 1970s and early 1980s remain unknown to American audiences. All this changed with his 1987 international breakthrough, the classic Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources diptych, which marked a new phase in his career as he pivoted to a series of large-scale period dramas rooted in French heritage.
The Quad is proud to present this retrospective with a selection of films from both halves of Berri’s career in conjunction with the international premiere of the 50th anniversary 4K restoration of his celebrated first film The Two of Us.
Titles include: The Two of Us (1976, DCP, 4K restoration), The First Time / La première fois (1976, 35mm), Germinal (1993, 35mm), Hard Off / La débandade
(1999, 35mm), Je vous aime (1980, 35mm), Jean de Florette (1986, 35mm), Lucie Aubrac (1997, 35mm), Male of the Century / Le mâle du siècle (1975, 35mm), Manon of the Spring / Manon des Sources (1986, 35mm), Le Sex Shop
(1972, 35mm), Uranus (1990, 35mm)
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