Laurent Olmedo Movies

Writer/director Olivier Dahan (Crimson Rivers II) helmed La Vie en Rose, the screen biopic of tragic French songstress Edith Piaf. Marion Cotillard portrays Piaf, the superstar once raised as a young girl by her grandmother in a Normandy bordello, then discovered on a French street corner -- as a complete unknown -- by cabaret proprietor Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu). The film segues breezily between various episodes from Piaf's life -- such as her lover, French boxer Marcel Cerdan's (Jean-Pierre Martins) championship bout in mid-'40s New York; her period in Hollywood during the '50s; Piaf's abandonment as a young girl by her contortionist father (and earlier by her mother, a street singer); her brushes with the law as an adult; and her 1951 car accident and subsequent morphine addiction that caused her to age well beyond her years and left her barely mobile; and, through it all, her ability (like Billie Holiday) to funnel personal tragedy and emotional struggles into her vocalizations -- dazzling audiences in the process. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

This is a light comedy about Amir, a young Pakistani who has been working for Jo for six years. Jo has a ready-to-wear clothes shop in the Sentier area and his business is prospering. He promised Amir that he would help him get his legal papers, but he has never kept his promise. Now he is sending Amir to his colleague Ralph in exchange for an unpaid debt from a card game. He thinks that this is a good opportunity to get rid of the illegal worker. Ralph is a fifty-year-old baby who keeps forgetting his appointments, his bank balance, and everything else that he should remember to run his life smoothly. His business is a complete disaster. A year later, Ralph's business has picked up, but Joe's is going down the drain. Thanks to whom? It is easy to answer this question if one follows Amir during his daily chores in the shop. But neither Jo nor Ralph's bother to take the time off to notice the hard work of this poor employee. Even if they did, they would not admit that a Pakistani is behind the success of the business. Secretly, Amir hopes that one day he will finally get his legal papers, if not a simple 'thank you' from his employers. The film is another effort by one of the group of French filmmakers actively involved in the fight against racial discrimination in France. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

A young teenaged girl tries to get affection from her cold-hearted mother in this gentle French drama. 14-year old Rosine lives somewhere in northern France where the cold rain continually falls. It is a metaphor for her life. Her mother Marie had her when she was only 16 and now wants little to do with her. She spends most of her nights out on the town. Rosine hungers for her mother's love. She is almost obsessed with getting it. She is frustrated because she never does. One day Pierre, her father shows up from the blue and Mare gladly takes him in. Rosine is a good sport and likes that he takes an interest in her. The brief respite from gloom doesn't last as Pierre soon begins to beat Marie and eventually rapes Rosine. The traumatized girl tries to get her mother to admit the incident, to pay attention to the hurting child, but Marie just doesn't care. Marie has no choice but to run away from home and make her own way. Marie is a spirited young woman and though not shown in the film, stands a good chance of making it in life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi