Jean-Philippe Ecoffey Movies

The astonishing true-life story of Jean-Dominic Bauby -- a man who held the world in his palm, lost everything to sudden paralysis at 43 years old, and somehow found the strength to rebound -- first touched the world in Bauby's best-selling autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (aka La Scaphandre et la Papillon), then in Jean-Jacques Beineix's half-hour 1997 documentary of Bauby at work, released under the same title, and, ten years after that, in this Cannes-selected docudrama, helmed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) and adapted from the memoir by Ronald Harwood (Cromwell). The Schnabel/Harwood picture follows Bauby's story to the letter -- his instantaneous descent from a wealthy and congenial playboy and the editor of French Elle, to a bed-bound, hospitalized stroke victim with an inactive brain stem that made it impossible for him to speak or move a muscle of his body. This prison, as it were, became a kind of "diving bell" for Bauby -- one with no means of escape. With the editor's mind unaffected, his only solace lay in the "butterfly" of his seemingly depthless fantasies and memories. Because of Bauby's physical restriction, he only possessed one channel for communication with the outside world: ocular activity. By moving his eyes and blinking, he not only began to interact again with the world around him, but -- astonishingly -- authored the said memoir via a code used to signify specific letters of the alphabet. In Schnabel's picture, Mathieu Amalric tackles the difficult role of Bauby; the film co-stars Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, and Patrick Chesnais. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Actor Vincent Perez makes his feature-film directorial debut with the romantic drama Once Upon an Angel, which he cowrote with his wife, Karine Silla, and Jerome Tonnerre. Young Angèle (Morgane Moré) sets out to find work in order to ease the burden for her poor, debt-ridden parents and finds a job as a maid. By chance, she meets Gregoire Berthelot (Guillaume Depardieu), who takes a carnal interest in the young woman and seemingly nothing more. Intensely attracted to Gregoire and against all reason, Angèle spends an evening with the fiery stranger who promptly leaves her the next morning -- but he comes away from the tryst with more feelings toward Angèle than he hoped. For her part, Angèle is also left with more than fond memories of her experience with Gregoire and she eventually tracks him down -- but discovers that a couple of major complications may prevent them from developing a meaningful relationship. Once Upon an Angel was chosen as a competing film in the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

The various emotional crises of a group of self-absorbed Edinburgh scenesters are the focus of writer/director Bernard Rudden's feature debut. Jed (Flash), a gloomy DJ in financial trouble with his club, falls hard for Emily (Shauna Macdonald), an enigmatic woman who passes the time hugging trees and pontificating about the Red Planet. Jed also has a girlfriend, Anna (Gaynor Purvis), who in turn falls hard for Pierrot (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey), a lubricious French pornographer who tells Anna that under his guidance, she will have a glittering career in the adult entertainment business. Meanwhile Eve (Diane Bell), Jed and Anna's messed-up American friend, is being followed by her brother, who wants to bring his sister back to their family. Shown at the 2000 Edinburgh Film Festival, Daybreak bears the distinction of being the first production of FilmFour Lab, the experimental arm of FilmFour. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

This romantic comedy from France explores the misadventures of several friends looking for love and trying to define beauty. Daphne (Arielle Dombasle) is a lovely women who is nonetheless unsure about her looks, compounded by the fact that she's fallen in love with Vincent (Thibault de Montalembert), who has a policy of only dating models. Daphne's best friend Celine (Maria de Medeiros) comes up with an idea -- she'll get her pal Jacques (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) to paint a nude portrait of Daphne. When Vincent sees the painting, he'll be more attracted to the woman who posed for it, leading him to her doorstep. But of course, it isn't quite that simple. Les Infortunes de la Beaute is dominated by Gilles Porte's largely hand-held camerawork, ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This film is the directorial debut of 29-year-old Graham Guit, who co-scripted with Eric Neve. Young Frenchman Lenny (Melvil Poupaud) takes some cocaine from London to Paris where he makes a risky connection with dapper drug dealer Joel (Jean-Phillippe Ecoffey) and his violent henchman Sammy (Issac Sharry), splitting the scene to get a plane ticket before they discover he's cut the coke. Joel's girlfriend Juliette (Romane Bohringer) seduces Lenny and makes off with the cash. But then Juliette falls for Lenny, decides to double-cross Joel, and departs with a suitcase of cash -- so she thinks. Instead of money, the suitcase contains many valuable vials of the drug Special K. While Lenny and Juliette search for a buyer so they can unload the Special K, Joel and Sammy are in hot pursuit. Shown at the 1997 London Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, layers and layers of personal lies provide the glue that holds a trendy, shallow group of Parisians together. The story centers on Ada, a deeply indebted, but promising young fashion designer who has just purchased an apartment with her lover and holds a housewarming party to celebrate. The bulk of the story unfolds episodically as assorted neurotic characters come to call and begin to intermingle. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Three French women in their 20s wrestle with their feelings about the nature of romance in this drama that chronicles their love lives over a 6 month period. The film opens with scenes that not only introduce the women, they also tell the viewer what is to become of two of them. Marie, who likes having sex with different partners, is a stockbroker. She is first seen climbing a huge tree to tell a portly office messenger of her love for him. Jeanne is married and works as a waitress. She finds her estranged husband in a restaurant. Alice, an art history student, is frigid and has low self-esteem because her father was domineering. She is first seen lying nude on a canvas. An artist pours paint upon her body. The film jumps back six months. The three women are at a local pool engaging in some post work-out girl talk. It is frank, graphic and quite sexual. Sex scenes illustrate their stories. Marie keeps sleeping around while Jeanne becomes a part-time hooker. Alice considers giving herself to a painter who creates tableaux of ecstatic naked women covered in paint. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Two women who were best friends since childhood come to realize the toll that adulthood has taken on their understanding of each other in this acclaimed French drama. Mina Tannenbaum (Romane Bohringer) and Ethel Benegui (Elsa Zylberstein) first met when they were ten years old. As young Jewish girls growing up in Paris, both felt like outcasts among their schoolmates, and they began to bond as fellow outsiders. That's about all they have in common. As a child, Ethel was a pudgy extrovert from an upper-middle class family who was eager to make friends, while slender and serious-minded Mina preferred to follow her own path and keep her own counsel, and she was raised under less privileged circumstances. Mina and Ethel have remained close friends as adults, but they are still as different as night and day. Mina, still an intelligent iconoclast, has made a name for herself as an artist, while Ethel happened into a career as a pop culture journalist. Ethel has had a number of unsatisfying relationships with men, while Mina is usually too afraid to approach the men she's attracted to. And while both Ethel and Mina value each other's friendship, in time they begin to realize how little they have in common -- and they provide each other with as much aggravation as comfort. Mina Tannenbaum was the debut feature for writer and director Martine Dugowson; it earned her a Cesar Award nomination (the French Oscar) for "Best First Film." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The real-life relationship between two of the most controversial literary figures of the 20th century forms the basis for this drama. Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) is a struggling author trying to finish her first book, a study of the work of D.H. Lawrence. She also has a keen sexual curiosity that is not being satisfied by her sweet but unexciting husband, Hugo (Richard E. Grant). Through Hugo's friend Richard (Kevin Spacey), Anaïs is introduced to Henry Miller (Fred Ward), a writer from America who shares Anaïs' passion for both eros and literature; she is later introduced to June (Uma Thurman), Henry's wife and a practicing bisexual. While Anaïs is attracted to Henry, to her surprise, she's even more strongly drawn to June; June, however, must return to America, and with her approval, Henry and Anaïs begin an affair. Anaïs' newfound sense of sexual liberation leads her to several new lovers over the next several months, but she and Henry find themselves pursuing the same object of affection when June returns to Paris. Henry & June's frank but tasteful treatment of sexual themes led the MPAA to threaten the film with an X-rating; instead, the film became the first feature released with the revised NC-17 classification. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this unusual feature, Manika (Ayesha Dharker) is a girl born in a Catholic family in a south Indian fishing village is convinced that she has recently had a former life as a Brahman wife in Nepal. Her parish priest, Father Daniel (Julian Sands) is under orders to convince her otherwise, as reincarnation does not accord with official Catholic doctrine. Instead, he agrees to journey with her to the site of her dreams of a previous life. Once there, they discover that all is just as she had dreamed it, and her former husband has remarried despite promising not to. Her arrival on the scene does not disturb the man, but it really upsets his new wife, who departs with her baby. Manika decides that it helps no one for her to remain there in Nepal, and returns to her home in the south. However, all this has caused a genuine crisis of faith for the priest who, witnessing all this, has had to grapple with some irreconcilable issues. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide