PARIS, JE T'AIME - US TRAILER (2007)
6 July 2007

Several love stories set in the city of love.

In Paris, Je T'aime, celebrated directors from around the world, including the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas, have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in oe of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen. Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation into her employer's bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex relationship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life. These are but a few of the witty and serendipitous narratives that make up Paris, Je T'aime. More information on the Internet Movie Database.

In love with Paris: a deeper insight 

Our attempt to define a new media model for cities started in 2000 with Paris, Je T’aime, the first opus of the Cities of Love franchise celebrating love for cities through cinematic storytelling made by world renown international artists. Eschewing the singular and instead embracing 24 directors, 34 writers, 43 lead actors, 18 cinematographers and 10 editors, the film was selected as the opening film of the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival Un Certain Regard section.This critically acclaimed and commercially successful film was distributed in 58 countries and generated US$ 48 million in global revenues: it marked a shift from the conventional ‘anthology’ to the ‘collective feature’ film.

Paris, Je T’aime was a statement for cultural diversity after the World Trade Organization’s attempt to treat culture as any other commercial product and service in international treaties and agreements in the mid-1990s. Producing a movie that celebrates a city generates a lot of enthusiasm from a large spectrum of stakeholders and was a meaningful labour of love.

The first success of Paris, Je T’aime had been to gather an extraordinary pool of renowned talent, from the Coen Brothers (Fargo) to Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity), from Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) to Natalie Portman (Black Swan); from Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings) to Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ), all creatively ecstatic to work in Paris and take part in an unconventional endeavour alongside new local talent -  quite a few of whom have made a remarkable career since then.

The second success came from the audience: French viewers were proud to see their city on the big screen and audiences around the world responded to the opportunity to discover or rediscover the City of Love. Celebrating Paris on film generated a variety of positive human emotions as well as a sense of pride. Viewers experienced a feeling of satisfaction to live or have been there; and a desire to be associated or connected to Paris. 

Its third success was to receive the attention of producers all around the world inspired to follow our path, but also to be noticed by city governments and communication agencies working with them. Paris, Je T’aime was perceived as a new approach to engage people and institutions around cities going way beyond the limits of traditional city promotion and tapping into authentic storytelling.

All along the process, we crossed paths with countless people who loved Paris and had a direct interest or a strong wish for the film to exist. Unfortunately, they did not have the money to finance it. Ultimately, the only way the film could be produced was to fundraise USD 13.1 million. Thus, in a strict industrial context, those who can give life to a movie are mainly focused on its commercial appeal and potential return over investment.

From that moment on, as innovators within the system, we never ceased to work hard on the design of a context that would facilitate the production of more Cities of Love films - an ecosystem that would not just envision the financial return of a movie but also its multifaceted impact on people, cities and society.

High quality city-driven content can provoke the desire to belong to a place or provide a gratifying validation of our choice to live somewhere: such content has the potential to be empowering and reconnective. Against all odds, good positive relevant content can stand out on its own.

Building smart and happy cities is about fulfilling a dream. It is about celebrating our urban lives and making them better. The love people have for the city where they live, whether they have chosen it or lived there all their life, or the aspiration they have to live somewhere, is a powerful source of energy. With the right content, that energy can beactivated in order to drive people’s engagement and inspire action.

 

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