Saturday October 14th at 7:30pm
MAIN HALL
Advance Screening of
The Paris Opera
post film discussion with
Director Jean-Stéphane Bron
October 14th at 7:30pm
Autumn 2015. At the Paris Opera, Stéphane Lissner is putting the finishing touches to his first press conference as director. Backstage, artists and crew prepare to raise the curtain on a new season with Schönberg’s Moses and Aaron. But the announcement of a strike and arrival of a bull in a supporting role complicate matters. At the same time, a promising young Russian singer begins at the Opera’s Academy. In the hallways of Opera Bastille, his destiny will cross paths with that of Bryn Terfel, one of the greatest voices of his time. As the season progresses, more and more characters appear, playing out the human comedy in the manner of a documentary Opera. But this comedy is set against a tragic backdrop when terrorist attacks plunge Paris into mourning. Even though the show must go on at all costs, there is no end of trouble for the new director. Star choreographer Benjamin Millepied jumps ship soon after taking over as director of ballet at Palais Garnier. Preparations for Richard Wagner’s six-hour opera Die Meistersinger reunite the company.
About Jean-Stéphane Bron
Writer-actor-director Jean-Stéphane Bron, who is mainly a director of documentary films (his first narrative film was the 2006 drama MON FRÈRE SE MARIE) was born in 1969 in Lausanne. He graduated from the School of Fine and Applied Arts of Lausanne (ECAL). In 2013, Bron directed L’EXPÉRIENCE BLOCHER, a portrait of the controversial Swiss nationalist-populist leader Christoph Blocher, which premiered in Locarno that year, and in 2010, his film CLEVELAND VERSUS WALL STREET premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors’ Fortnight. He has been nominated for César Award for Best Documentary and has won the Swiss Film Award twice. Bron is a co-founder of the Swiss production company Bande À Part Films, together with Ursula Meier, Frédéric Mermoud and Lionel Baier.