Richard Anconina

The Sephardic Jewish characters who headlined the riotous 1997 comedy Would I Lie To You? - all employees in the garment business - return for this laugh-filled 2001 sequel. At the center of the farce are Dov (Gad Elmaleh), Patrick (Gilbert Melki), Serge (Jose Garcia), Yvan (Bruno Solo) and Eddie (Richard Anconina), friends for life and colleagues in the said industry, who spend their days wheeling and dealing and establishing connections but run the socioeconomic gamut from filthy rich to lower working class. A series of misunderstandings commences when blue-collar Serge - employed as a motorcycle messenger and living with his parents - takes the wealthy Patrick's blue Rolls Royce convertible out on an errand and runs headfirst into Chochana (Elisa Tovati), a Jewish girl with whom he feels instantly smitten. She naturally assumes, given the car, that he's wealthy - and he of course does nothing to discourage this. In time, Serge manages to prolong the economic ruse to such a degree that he ends up engaged to the high-maintenance Chocana, and on a headfirst collision course with her furniture kingpin father (Enrico Macias). Meanwhile, the garment industry as a whole in Le Sentier (the chief Parisian neighborhood in which the men do business) suffers from a massive economic downturn, thanks in no small part to escalating labor costs and the flourishing of Internet start-ups; in desperation, Yvan and Eddie turn to EuroDiscount, a massive chain of European department stores, with a feeble attempt to sell their merchandise to that outfit. They fail to count, however, on the ugly reaction of the cunning manager, Vierhouten (Daniel Prevost), which threatens to send them spiraling toward bankruptcy. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

In this French box-office smash, director Thomas Gilou once again trains his sights on working-class immigrants living in metropolitan Paris, as he did with Black Mic-Mac. This time the subjects are the Sephardic Jews working in the garment district of Sentier. Eddie Vuibert (Richard Anconina) is an unemployed man who gets a job working in the stock room of a wholesale fabric dealer because the owner, Victor Benzakem (Richard Bohringer), believes that Eddie is Jewish, just like him. The opportunistic Eddie owes his job to this mistaken identity, and he does his best to preserve it, comically navigating the dangerous waters of learning strange customs and behavior. Eddie is promoted to a salesman and tries to romance Victor's daughter Sandra (Amira Casar), but she is involved with another fabric dealer, a corrupt man. Eddie must prove himself worthy on his own terms. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Life is pretty grim for the boy in this story. School holds no pleasures, his mother is a drunk, and his stepfather is a real pill. It's no surprise that he plays hooky sometimes. One day he discovers that he has an older sister. Consumed with a desire to find her, he uses his stepfather's pistol to hold up a store for money for his quest and then takes a policeman hostage. The policeman helps him find his sister, and the young woman whom he has never met before is surprisingly willing to try and help him get out of trouble and away from his depressing family. This drama is filmed in a sensitive and unusual fashion and won all sorts of French and European film-making awards, including the Prix Louis-Delluc. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Fred Segal (Richard Anconina) is a commercial director whose marriage is headed for disaster in this light romantic comedy drama. He decides he wants to play music and takes flute lessons from the beautiful Isabelle (Anemone). The experience wakens feelings of romance in Fred he thought were long-since dead, and soon he must chose between his wife and his musical teacher. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Teresa (Giulianna De Sio) is a nurse who works to support her lazy husband and her pompous mother-in-law in the hospital named after her famous father-in-law. She must raise $1,000 to save her beloved father. Teresa soon becomes involved in a series of comedic circumstances where she goes to the dog races, pushes dope, and is auctioned off as the grand prize at a bordello bingo game. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this action thriller, Richard Anconina is Willie, a young and lonesome cop who loves lonesome cowboy music. While on a drug case Willie comes across a mulatta named Jo (model Ambre of Senegalese extraction), who is trapped in a dismal life of prostitution by two abusive Lebanese brothers, who also work in the illegal weapons business. Risking his own life, Willie frees Jo from their fierce imprisonment, but the battered woman runs right back again. Understanding her dilemma, Willie keeps at it until she comes around and stays with him -- but by now the two arms dealers have long decided to use their merchandise to wipe Willie off the Parisian streets. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This melodrama, set in WW II during the French occupation, tells the story of the members of a Jewish family who flee the Germans and end up hiding in the country manse of two aristocrats. Unfortunately, the Gestapo finds them and they are sent to a concentration camp. The film then leaps ahead to 1985 where the daughter of the couple begins believing that her dead brother has been reincarnated as a famed pianist. She feels this is so because both of them love Rachmaninoff's "Concerto No. 2". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This strange crime-cum-romance story starts out with the ordinary work-a-day life of Mangin, an apparently straight-and-narrow cop (Gerard Depardieu), and then segues into a love story after he meets Noria, a beautiful Arab woman (Sophie Marceau) who has just been arrested during a drug raid. Mangin grills her, but his buddy, a lawyer of dubious ethics named Lambert (Richard Anconina), gets the woman released. Enamored almost from the beginning, Mangin begins to pursue Noria and soon finds himself faced with making the ethical decision to arrest her -- or not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This story about a wounded American gangster seeking refuge in the country villa of a blind, sophisticated, and aging actor has an uneven script that alternates sharp dialogue with slow segments. The plot thickens when the actor's nephew arrives with his new love interest, and she is quite taken with the gangster. Jealous of his brutish rival, the young nephew plans to get back at the American in any way he can. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this comic and perceptive story, Billy mistakes another apartment for his own on the eve of his wedding and wanders in to meet a woman who immediately mesmerizes him, causing all sorts of problems in what used to be an uncomplicated life. After Billy (Richard Berry) and his bride-to-be Nina (Zoe Chauveau) move into a housing project still in its finishing stages, Billy walks into the wrong apartment when he forgets which floor he is supposed to be on. When he sees Viviane (Brigitte Fossey) he is transfixed by her, and since her husband has just ended their marriage, she is particularly susceptible. Without explaining where he actually lives or that he is getting married, Billy seduces Viviane, but then does not have the courage to break off his wedding. When Viviane rejects their affair and takes off for Paris, Billy goes in search of her -- not knowing that Nina's father has caught on to Billy's extra-marital activities and would like to express a few viewpoints of his own in that regard. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Alain Delon produced, directed, co-wrote, and starred in this story about a solitary thief, jailed for a jewel robbery and the murder of the jeweler, and set free after serving his prison term. His objective is to get his hands on the stolen jewels before a crowd of gangsters reaches them and/or kills him, and before the police can catch up with him again. The hero-thief-murderer manages to romance an attractive woman in the meantime, suggesting his future might be rosier than his past. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide