NOTRE MUSIQUE

A film by Jean-Luc Godard

A Wellspring Release
World Premiere, 2004 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection, 2004 Toronto Film Festival Official Selection, 2004 New York Film Festival Official Selection, Chicago International Film Festival
WINNER BEST FILM OF THE YEAR FIPRESCI INTERNATIONAL FILM CRITICS
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NOTRE MUSIQUE Our Music

The Filmmakers Writer/Director Producers Director of Photography Art Director Sound JEAN-LUC GODARD ALAIN SARDE RUTH WALDBURGER JULIEN HIRSCH ANNE-MARIE MIVILLE PIERRE ANDR GABRIEL HAFNER FRANOIS MUSY ELIAS SANBAR RICHARD ROUSSEAU JEAN-PAUL BATTAGIA ZYBA GALIJASEVIC AURLIEN POITRIMOULT JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BEAUVALLET JEAN SIBELIUS ALEXANDER KNAIFEL HANS OTTE KETIL BJORNSTAD MEREDITH MONK KOMITAS GYORGY KURTAG VALENTIN SILVSTROV PETER TCHAIKOVSKY TRYGVE SEIM ARVO PRT ANOUAR BRAHEM DAVID DARLING ANTONIA BIRNBAUM WOLFGANG SOFSKY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY MAURICE BLANCHOT

Memory Casting Production Manager Second Unit Director Assistant Camera Music Extracts from

Texts

79 minutes In French, English and Spanish with subtitles Dolby SRD

NOTRE MUSIQUE Our Music

The Cast Judith Lerner Olga Brodsky Ramos Garcia Ambassador C. Maillard Indians Spanish Translator SARAH ADLER NADE DIEU RONY KRAMER SIMON EINE JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOUVET GEORGE AGUILAR LETICIA GUTIRREZ LANA SCHULMANN

with FERLYN BRASS ELMA DZANIC LANA BARIC as themselves JEAN-LUC GODARD MAHMOUD DARWISH JUAN GOYTISOLO JEAN-PAUL CURNIER PIERRE BERGOUNIOUX GILLES PEQUEUX

NOTRE MUSIQUE Our Music

Shot and Reverse Shot Imaginary: Certainty Reality: Uncertainty The Principle of Cinema: Go Towards the Light and Shine it on Our Night Our Music

Part poetry, part journalism, part philosophy, Jean-Luc Godards Notre Musique is a timeless meditation on war as seen through the prisms of cinema, text and image. Largely set at a literary conference in Sarajevo, the film draws on the conflagration of the Bosnian war, but also draws on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the brutal treatment of Native Americans, and the legacy of the Nazis. Notre Musique is structured into three Dantean Kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. In the film, real-life literary figures (including Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish and Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo) intermingle with actors; and documentary meshes with fiction. Notre Musique also follows the parallel stories of two Israeli Jewish women, Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler) and Olga Brodsky (Nade Dieu); one drawn to the light and one drawn towards darkness. Through evocative language and images, Godard explores a series of conflicting forces: death; life dark, light; good; bad negative, positive; real; imaginary; activists; storytellers vanquished; victor; criminals; victims; suicidal; hopeful shot, reverse shot. These opposing movements are eternal. They are the two faces of truth. They are our music.

KINGDOM 1: HELL

Bright flashes of explosions set off images of war throughout the ages: gunfire, airplanes, tanks, battleships, executions, devastated countrysides, the holocaust and the atomic bomb. We hear a womans voice: And so, in the age of fable There appeared on earth Men armed for extermination Black and white intertwines with color. Some images are documentary footage; and some are taken from Hollywood movies like Apocalypse Now, Zulu and Kiss Me Deadly. Theyre horrible here. With their obsession for cutting off heads Its amazing that anybody survives. All the images are silent; the only sound we hear is the spare pulsing of a solitary piano: sometimes played very delicately; sometimes furiously hammered. We consider death two ways: The impossible of the possible And the possible of the impossible *

KINGDOM 2: PURGATORY Why Sarajevo? Because of Palestine and because I live in Tel Aviv I wanted to see a place where reconciliation was possible.
--Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler), Notre Musique

Jean-Luc Godard arrives in Sarajevo to give a lecture on The Text and the Image for the European Literary Encounters. He meets Ramos Garcia (Rony Kramer), who tells him about his life. The Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo gets in a car and is joined by an Israeli journalist, Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler). Godard gets in another car with another Literary Encounters guest. Someone asks Godard why revolutions arent started by humane people. Thats because humane people dont start revolutions, he says. They start libraries. And cemetaries, adds the guest. Driving through the sites of the Bosnian war, Goytisolo says, killing a man to defend an idea isnt defending an idea. Its killing a man. In another car, Literary Encounter guest C. Maillard (Jean-Christophe Bouvet) speaks passionately about the terrible impact of war. Violence leaves a permanent scar, he says. To see your fellow man turn on you leaves a feeling of deep-rooted horror. All the Literary Encounters people arrive for a reception at the mansion of French Ambassador Olivier Naville (Simon Eine). After arranging a meeting with his former classmate, French writer Pierre Bergounioux, the Ambassador asks if writers know what theyre talking about. Of course not, says the writer. He explains that people who act dont have the ability to express themselves about what they do; and likewise people who tell stories dont know what theyre talking about. Judith Lerner tells Ambassador Naville that he gave shelter to a young man and his fiance in Vichy France in 1943; her mother was born in his apartment. Judith now wants to interview him about Israel and the Palestinians from the point of view of his onetime resistance to the Nazis. She says she doesnt want the diplomatshe wants the man himself. Not a just conversation, she says, just a conversation. Naville says that accepting her proposal might make it necessary for him to resign. As he explores the ruins of the Sarajevo Public Library, Juan Goytisolo recites a poem about the revelation of the better fate of the dead, and how this helps people cross more peacefully into darkness. A Native American couple approaches and the man speaks about the destructive legacy of Columbus on his people. Isnt it about time for us to meet in the same age? he asks. Both of us strangers in the same land, the woman continues, meeting at the tip of an abyss.

In the lobby of the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, Judith Lerner interviews the celebrated Arab poet Mahmoud Darwich. Darwich points out that the Trojan victims were only discussed through the literature of the conquering Greeks, like Homer. As a Palestinian, he is a poet of the vanquished. Olga (Nade Dieu), a Jewish Israeli of Russian descent, rushes through the streets of Sarajevo to attend Godards lecture. The director talks about the way language divides things. Try to imagine; try to see, he says. With the first you say look at that; with the second you say close your eyes. Godard calls the shot and the reverse shot the basics of film grammar. He shows parallel images of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell from Howard Hawks His Girl Friday, and explains that the shots are the same because Hawks doesnt see a difference between men and women. It is worse with two things that are alike, says Godard. Truth has two faces. He relates an anecdote about German scientist Werner Heisenberg and Danish physicist Niels Bohr and their visit to Elsinor Castle. Heisenberg thought that the castle was nothing special; Bohr countered, when you say its Hamlets castlethen its special. A student asks, Can the new digital cameras save the cinema? Godard is silent.
Cinema is made with what is called negatives in every language. And you draw a positive from this. And this specific element of photography is a metaphor which is more than a metaphor, its a kind of reality. With digital, theres no more negative; youve only got the positive. Youve only got the axis of good and not the axis of bad. Jean-Luc Godard, Cannes Press Conference

Olga visits the Mostar Bridge. Famed architect Gilles Pecqueux is supervising the rebuilding of the bridge; he tells Olga about the symbolic importance of the work. Its not to restore the past; its to make the future possible. Olga cant respond to the spirit of hope symbolized by the bridge. On the other hand, Judith takes pictures of the bridge, for her a significant step towards the healing of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Full of joy, she sees the Native Americans leave in a truck and has a vision of them in tribal outfits, returned to their glory. For Sarah, past and future are one; she isnt afraid to dream. Walking alone, Olga says to herself, There are two people side by side. Im next to her. I never saw her before. I recognize myself. Olga meets with Ramos, who is her uncle. Filled with guilt by her identity as an Israeli and a Jew, she wants to kill herself, but there are two things holding her back: the pain and her fear of the Next World. There will be total liberty, she says, when its the same to live or die. The Encounters are over. Olga tries to give a video to Godard.

French author and essayist Jean-Paul Curnier and C. Maillard are having a conversation in a bar. Curnier sees the world as divided into victims and criminals. People can always avoid being tried as a criminals by accusing even bigger criminalsand thus becoming victims themselves. Victims can always get a hearing as they provide easy moral comfort to the dominant society. The young people who work for the Encounters say goodbye to Godard at the airport. One gives him Olgas DVD. The director looks at Olgas sad, beautiful face reflected on the shiny surface of the disc. Back at his home, Godard is working in the garden when he receives a call from Ramos. Olga is dead. She took hostages in a cinema in Jerusalem, threatening to blow herself up. After letting the hostages go, marksmen killed her. Approaching Olgas lifeless body, they opened her shoulder bag. Inside were only books.

KINGDOM 3: HEAVEN

Olga walks through a lush green forest It is truly an idyllic setting except for the fences guarded by rifle-bearing Marines. Olga walks by the waters edge. She passes a girl spinning strips of fabric on a string. A young man reads Street of No Return. Two couples in swimsuits play a lighthearted.game. She sits down next to a soldier by the edge of the water and they share an apple. It was a fine clear day. You could see a long way off. But not as far as Olga had gone.

In Sarajevo, the Jew of the cinema cultivates a sense of optimism.

From Le Monde - Interview by Jacques Mandelbaum and Thomas Sotinel By happy coincidence, just as Europe is expanding and the cinema is wondering where its own boundaries lie, Jean-Luc Godard went to Sarajevo to make Notre Musique (Our Music), a serious and optimistic film. He describes the genesis of the film and the sense of serenity he found in an abandoned city where there is some hope of reconstruction. Three years ago in Cannes, you said you already knew your next film would be called Notre musique. Since A bout de souffle [Breathless, 1959], Ive always known the names of my films ahead of time. Whether its a stick or a carrot, thats how it goes. Its an indicator, a sound. Something could be called such-and-such so what do we need to do so that it can be called by that name? What made you decide to divide the film into three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven? One concept I share with Anne-Marie Miville is making triptychs: a past, a present, a future; one image, another image and what comes between, what I call the real image, the third person, as in the Trinity. And I would call the third person the image, the image we dont see, that comes from what weve glimpsed of what we will be seeing. For the rest, the cinema works in a nave way technically, practically, just like that. And so when I went to Sarajevo, clearly it was Purgatory. They had Hell before, now its Purgatory, but I dont think theyll ever have Heaven. What principles were you following when you filmed the Hell segment, which is a montage of war images? Im always afraid that Ill wind up with no more than an hour and 20 minutes of film. So there was one hour for Purgatory, and I told myself we needed 10 minutes before and 10 minutes afterwards. Hell is quite long, with 10 minutes worth of documents, divided into four small moments, which is easier than going on for 10 minutes. The first part is all the wars, the second is technology tanks, aircraft, ships. The third is victims of war, and the fourth part is some images of Sarajevo during the war, to introduce the Purgatory segment. Why did you decide to mix documentary images and fiction? I dont make a big distinction between the two. You wont see a couple kissing in a document[ary], youll see it in a fiction film. I was thinking of the [Robert] Aldrich film Kiss Me Deadly and then showing a map of Hiroshima after the destruction, since the Aldrich film was a metaphor for the atomic bomb at the time.

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What made you want to go to Sarajevo? Id been there once or twice before. I was invited by the Rencontres du livre, and suddenly I said to myself, thats where this should take place, almost as if I was drawn to it. And then Id rather whether because Im afraid or I just prefer it that way or want to be contrary, go there once the fires been extinguished, but theres always something going on under the ashes when everyones gone. The place itself is abandoned, neglected again. You put the Sarajevo Rencontres du livre up on the screen. How did you work with the writers we see? Juan Goytisolo had been there three times. There were some unknown writers whose prose I found interesting or touching. And then there was [the Palestinian poet] Mahmoud Darwish for a bit of the Israel-Palestine theme, which was an underlying theme but I didnt want to make it the main element. That would have turned it into a different film, lets say the story of that Israeli reporter or the story of Olga, the Jewish student of Russian origin. I wanted to show them all on equal terms, I wanted to be democratic, with both fiction and documentary, real actors and false actors and no actors at all, and me intervening as a guest. Its almost a tribute to the written form. Yes, a tribute to the written form by its greatest destroyer. But what Im destroying is a way of using the written form that refuses to take images on equal terms. Do we detect a certain disenchantment in the infernal beginning of the film, in the tone of your cinema lesson? No, there was, but not any more. Im just an ordinary citizen whos disenchanted with a certain number of things. Once you get older sometimes youre a little more disenchanted, but at the same time enchanted with other things you discover with age. But there are so many things that dont work why is that? I dont see why they invented social security during the Liberation and then, 50 years later, it cant exist any more. And why they started to talk about retirement during the Liberation, but that doesnt work. The other day, I got a call from a contract worker. I told him, If you want an hour-long discussion, go to my press conference. Id be delighted not to do it. He was talking about occupation, and I told him, If youre putting up a resistance, its hard to use the word occupation. Three Jewish characters is a lot in one movie. Im the fourth. Im a Jew of the cinema.

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You seem to be placing more and more emphasis on the fate of the Jews. Where does that come from? Its been a gradual process, because Ive had to educate myself on the subject. At my grandfathers house he was a collaborationist we would listen to speeches by Philippe Henriot every evening. During the war, my parents were part of the Swiss Red Cross, visiting refugee camps. But no one ever explained to me what had happened. Afterwards, bit by bit, I did some reading here and there and finally made some connections. But basically, Ive never succeeded in knowing what it really means to be Jewish. The only way for me to understand it is to tell myself that Im the same: I want to be with others, and at the same time not with others. This is a feeling I have myself. Exactly what do you mean by the parallel you make between Jews and Muslims in the film, based on the two photos of Nazi death-camp prisoners? Where did you get the photos you used for that? The first photo is well known, its a picture of a prisoner with bulging eyeballs, which I believe was taken when the camps were liberated. The other photo, of a deported person, gives you the feeling that the end is near. Theyre the ones who were so exhausted physically they were nearly dead, who were called Muslims in the camps. Ive always wondered how it happened that the Germans called Jews Muslims. And then I realized that this was where the Middle East conflict started. Youre in an apartment, and someone arrives and says, I have been appointed by God; I will now occupy this apartment. I wanted to make a movie about that with Marcel Ophuls, where we would show the two of them in that apartment. We talked, we tried to solve the question between ourselves, as if we had the power to do so, but it didnt work out. Isnt it dangerous to suggest, as you do, a parallel between the extermination of the Jews and the Palestinian exile due to the Middle East conflict? Of course, I thought about that for a long time. When you put the two things side by side, they say its disgusting. But how is it that no one neither the Jews nor the Palestinians has drawn that parallel? And when I do that, Im not thinking about it, I do it like a scientist bringing elements together. People would rather talk about something than really look at it. What Im saying is, lets look at the images. I would rather look [first], then talk about it afterwards. In the dialogue between the Israeli journalist and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, they dont speak the same language, but they seem to understand each other. He understood her, because Darwish speaks Arabic and understands Hebrew, but she didnt understand him, because she doesnt speak Arabic, but shes a good actress.

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The poet says, We are fortunate that our enemy is Israel, because the Jews are the centre of the world. What is your understanding of this idea that the Jewish people, the pariah of the nations for 20 centuries, is the centre of the world? What does that mean, the centre of the world? Heres how I understand it. There is something very original about the Israelis, but theyve introduced the idea of origin into their originality. Origin means that someone came first. They have theorized about all that, and so its completely normal that what happened to them did happen to them, and theyve been able to theorize about it because it happened to them. Lets move from the centre of the world to the masters of the world, the Americans, who are also, in your film, the guards of Heaven I didnt invent that. Everyone will credit me with making that anti-American comment, but you should know that it comes from the last couplet of the Marines Hymn, which weve heard 100 times from Ford or Hawks. How would I invent that? The Americans want to have everything There are many lands on the American continent, so why is just that little bit of it called America? The U.S. knows very well that its the name of a country that has no land, people who have no land, so they need to find their land somewhere else. Youve said that you feel youre on the fringes of the cinema. Do you feel more serene about that experience today? Of course I do, but it was Sarajevo that brought me that, Sarajevo as a metaphor for Europe, with people who feel that theyre separated from others and at the same time are with us, with something to be reconstructed together. Thats why my film is relatively serious, but also an optimistic film.

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NOTRE MUSIQUE Our Music The Filmmakers JEAN-LUC GODARD For five decades, Jean-Luc Godard has explored the frontiers of film, constantly reinventing and reinvigorating himself and demonstrating the immense potential of the cinematic form. Since making his debut in 1954, he has made ninety short and feature films. He made an enormous impact on the future direction of cinema, influencing filmmakers as diverse as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-Wai, among others. Born into a wealthy family in Paris on December 3, 1930, Godards parents sent him to live in Switzerland when the war broke out, and there he became a naturalized Swiss citizen. In the late 40s he returned to Paris to study ethnology at the Sorbonne. There he met Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, a group of passionate young filmmakers devoted to exploring new possibilities in cinema. In May 1950, Godard, Truffaut and Rivette teamed up to publish the monthly magazine La Gazette du Cinma, which printed though November of that year. There he published his first critical pieces, both under his own name and the pseudonym Hans Lucas. He also acted in early films by Rivette and Rohmer. In 1952, Godard began writing for Cahiers du Cinma, the influential film magazine also contributed to by Truffaut, Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, among others. In 1952, Godard returned to Switzerland to work on the construction of the Grande-Dixence Dam. With his earnings, he was able to finance his first short, Operation Bton (1954). While in Geneva, he made another short, Une Femme Coquette (1955), and then returned to Paris where he resumed writing for Cahiers and made more short films: Tous les Garons sappellent Patrick (1957), Charlotte et son Jules (1958) and Une Histoire dEau (1958, co-directed with Truffaut.) In 1960, he made his debut with Breathless, his tribute to the American gangster movie, shot without a script (from a story outline by Truffaut) in a freewheeling style, with an innovative use of the jump cut. Breathless electrified audiences and helped (along with Truffauts The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais Hiroshima Mon Amour) establish what came to be called the French New Wave. His next film, Le Petit Soldat (1960), was the first of eight movies he directed which starred his wife, Anna Karina. His subsequent films, including A Woman is a Woman (1961), Vivre sa Vie (1962) Les Carabiniers (1963), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), Alphaville (1965) and Pierrot Le Fou (1965), brought him international fame. At this time, Godard was the most discussed director in the world, provoking extreme responses. From 1966 to 1968, his films increasingly showed the influence of 60s radical politics and the currents which exploded in the May '68 riots: Masculine-Feminine (1966), Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966), La Chinoise (1967, starring his second wife, Anne Wiazemsky), Weekend (1967) and Le Gai Savoir (1968).

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From 1969 to 1974, Godard began collaborating with Jean-Pierre Gorin as the Dziga Vertov Group (after the Russian avant-gardist). Together, they made overtly political and revolutionary cinema, including Wind From the East, Vladimir and Rosa, Tout Va Bien (1972) and Letter to Jane (1972). These films were radical in content and style and based on ideas of class struggle and dialectical materialism. In 1972, Godard moved to Rolle, Switzerland, where he planned to remodel a video studio and establish alternative means of production and distribution. There he began a partnership with Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Miville, which continues to this day. At this time, he moved away from radical politics, and returned to more personal material. Fascinated with developments in new media, he and Miville have experimented with video, making several on commission for clients including Channel 4, France Telecom and UNICEF. His subsequent films include Numro Deux (1975), Ici et ailleurs (1976), and in 1978 he returned to France to make Every Man for Himself (1979, starring Isabelle Huppert). In 1980, Godard moved to California to work with Francis Coppola on a film about Bugsy Siegel, which never went into production. Returning to Paris, he began working on his trilogy of the sublimePassion (1982), First Name: Carmen (1983, where he stars as himself), (1985), and his controversial Hail Mary (1985, a controversial modern retelling of the Virgin birth)all concerned with feminine beauty and nature. After his neo noir Detective (1985), Godard and Miville produced Soft and Hard (1986), the TV film Grandeur et Dcadence dun Petit Commerce de Cinema (1986), Soigne ta Droite (1986) and King Lear (1986). He followed with Nouvelle Vague (1990), Germany 90 Nine Zero (1991), Hlas pour moi (1993), Forever Mozart (1996, about a French theatre troupe trying to put on a play in Sarajevo), and his highly regarded eight-hour series Histoires du cinma (1997-98), also edited into a 90-minute version. His film loge de l'amour (In Praise of Love), partially about an elderly couple who are former heroes of the Resistance, was acclaimed at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and was released in the U.S. the following year. Godards next project is an omnibus film, Paris, je taime, in which he joins a number of international directorsincluding the Coen Brothers, Mike Figgis, Walter Salles, Mira Nair, Tom Tykwer, Michel Gondry and Anne-Marie Mivillein making a short film about a Paris arrondissement. While Godards reputation as a reclusive figure is well known, he has displayed a humorous selfawareness both outside and inside his films (where he often appears as himself). He told The New Yorker that he and Miville had clipped a cartoon from the paper which exemplifies their situation: a unicorn in a suit is sitting at a desk and talking on the phone with a caption reading These rumors of my non-existence are making it very difficult for me to obtain financing. # ANNE-MARIE MIVILLE (Art Director) # #

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Best known for her thirty-year collaboration with Godardas a co-director, writer, producer, actress, art director and still photographerAnne-Marie Miville has also created a highly acclaimed body of short and feature films on her own. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Miville met Godard in 1972 when she served as still photographer on Tout Va Bien. Among the films and videos Miville has subsequently codirected with Godard are Ici et ailleurs (1976, also wrote), France/tour/detour/deux/enfants (1977, also wrote) Comment a va? (1978, also wrote), Soft and Hard (1986, also acted), Comment vont les enfants (1990), Against Oblivion (1991), 2 x 50 Years of French Cinema (1995), and Libert et patrie (2002, also wrote); some of her other notable screenplays for Godard are Every Man for Himself (1980), First Name: Carmen and Detective (1985). After making a number of shorts, including How Can I Love (1983), The Book of Mary (1984), Living it Up (1987), Miville made her feature debut with My Favorite Story (1988), followed by Lou Didnt Say No (1993), My Favorite Story, Were All Still Here (1997), and After the Reconciliation (2000). Her next project as director is a segment in the omnibus film Paris, je taime.

JULIEN HIRSCH (Director of Photography) This is Julien Hirschs third collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard, after the acclaimed loge de l'amour and the short Ten Minutes Older: The Cello, a segment in the Film Dans le noir du temps. He first worked with Godard in 1993 as the first assistant cameraman on Hlas pour moi. Born in Paris, Hirsch works often in Spain and France. His recent films include Soins et beaut, Anywhere out of the World, Amour denfance, Novo, Motus, Zro Dfaut, Adieu, Clandestino, and Ordo. # # #

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NOTRE MUSIQUE Our Music About the Cast

SARAH ADLER (Judith Lerner) French actress Sarah Adlers 1999 film Afraid of Anything, co-starring Nathalie Richard and written and directed by David Barker, was acclaimed upon its showing in New York this year. She made her film debut with a small role in Benjamin P. Speths Dresden in 1999. Her subsequent films include Itamar Kubovys Upheaval (2001), Frdric Videaus Varit franaise (2003), Raphal Nadjaris Avanim (2004), and Richard Dembos (Dangerous Moves) La Maison de Nina (2004). She also appeared in David Barkers play Does Thinking Take Place Out Loud?

NADE DIEU (Olga Brodsky) Nade Dieu is best known for her role in Philippe Muyls 2002 film The Butterfly (Le Papillon), co-starring Michel Serrault. Her other films include Vivian Goffetes Le Centre du monde (2000), Pierre Schllers Zro dfaut (2003), and Chantal Akermans Demain on dmnage (2004), with Aurore Clment. On television, Dieu has been seen in Maigret et linpecteur Cadavre, Le Temps perdu, Y a pas dge pour saimer, and La vie comme elle vient.

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOUVET (C. Maillard) Among Jean-Christophe Bouvets eighty film and TV movie credits are Maurice Pialat Under Satans Sun, Cyril Collards Savage Nights, and the miniseries The Count of Monte Cristo. Bouvet is also a writer and a director, with numerous TV credits; his two films as a writer/director are Le Dernier wagon and Les Dents de ma mre.

SIMON EINE (The Ambassador) Simon Eine has appeared in numerous films and TV movies in France, including Claude Lelouchs Another Man, Another Chance, Michel Devilles The Reader, and Pierre GranierDeferres LAutrichienne.

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GEORGE AGUILAR (Indian) George Aguilars film credits include Ulzanas Raid, The Trial of Billy Jack, Bagdad Caf, The Scarlet Letter, The Stepford Wives, and the French films Le Fils du Franais, and Le Mystre de la chambre jaune. He has also appeared on such TV programs as Oz, 100 Centre Street, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Little House on the Prairie.

LETICIA GUTIRREZ (Indian) Leticia Gutirrez is a Mexican actress who works in her own country and in France, where she has studied extensively and appears on the stage. Her Mexican films include Historias de una familia, Bedtime Fairy Tales for Crocodiles, and The Cornfield.

As Themselves

MAHMOUD DARWISH Mahmoud Darwish is one of the worlds most celebrated Arab poets. When he recites his poems in Cairo, Beirut and Algiersor in Paris or Londonhuge crowds come to mouth the verse with him. His poetry is read and sung all over the Arabic speaking world. While he lives his life as an exiled Palestinian, he has never given up his Israeli citizenship. His poetry tells of his native village, erased from the map in 1948, which is reborn through his words. In 1998, Simone Bitton and Elias Sanbar (who Godard gives the credit of Memory in Notre Musique) made a film on Darwish entitled Mahmoud Darwish: The Land as Language. The interview that Darwish gives to the fictional Israeli journalist Judith Lerner in Notre Musique is taken from an actual interview he gave to an Israeli journalist. Although he was speaking his own words, Mr. Darwish had to memorize his lines for the film; as Godard has said, he was as much an actor as the actors.

JUAN GOYTISOLO While considered Spains greatest writer, Juan Goytisolo is an expatriate; he makes his home in Marrakech, Morocco. His novels banned in Francos Spain, he moved to Paris in 1954 where he married Monique Lange, who later became a writer. Bisexual, Goytisolo had an open marriage with Lange. In the 60s, Goytisolo started to live part of the year in Morocco, often without Lange. After Francos death, he had made Morocco and Paris his homesand had no desire to return to Spain, a society he has brutally criticized through his books. Over time he has become deeply involved in Islamic culture, and from this perspective he has launched his criticism of Spanish culture through thirty books of fiction, autobiography, essays and journalism.

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PIERRE BERGOUNIOUX Pierre Bergounioux was born in 1949 Brive-la-Gaillarde in Corrze (France). In 1974, after receiving his degree, he taught French in schools around Paris. He published his first novel Catherine (which he wrote in twelve days) in 1984. Since then, he has published nearly twenty books, including novels and critical studies of artists and writers, such as Faulkner and Homer. Also a sculptor, Bergouniouxs work involves smoldering together abandoned metal objectsturning junk into things of beauty. His fiction is all set in the countryside, where Bergounioux pursues his passions, which include fishing and entomology.

JEAN-PAUL CURNIER Born in Arles (in the French Riviera) in 1951, Jean-Paul Curnier is the author of numerous studies on public cultural policies, aesthetics and the media. He also writes fiction, plays and movies. From 1988 to 1991, Curnier was an advisor to the Minister of Culture and to UNESCO. Currently, he is a teacher at the University of Provence (Aix-Marseille) and editor of the weekly newspaper Art and Culture.

GILLES PEQUEUX Gilles Pequeux is a celebrated French architect who has been working since 1988 to restore the famed Mostar Bridge in Sarajevo. Built by the Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin in 1566 after nine years of work, the elegant arch of the bridge has amazed people throughout the centuries. But it only took half an hour for the Croatian artillery to destroy it during the war, along with such treasures as the National Library of Sarajevo (its ruins are also seen in Notre Musique). To this date, the city of Mostar remains divided; after living together for centuries, the Catholic Croats and the Muslim Bosnians live on opposite sides of the Neretva River. The restoration is being done using original stones recovered from the Neretva and 16th Century technology. For Muslims and Croats, the rebuilding of the bridge is a powerful symbol of healing and rebirth.

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ABOUT WELLSPRING IN CURRENT RELEASE Cdric Kahns Red Lights starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin & Carole Bouquet Vincent Gallos The Brown Bunny starring Vincent Gallo & Chlo Sevigny

COMING SOON Jonathan Caouettes Tarnation executive produced by Gus Van Sant & John Cameron Mitchell Tsai Ming-liangs Goodbye Dragon Inn Jean Luc-Godards Notre Musique Jessica Yus In The Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger Past releases include some of the most acclaimed and successful arthouse films of recent years such as Russian Ark, hailed by Roger Ebert as "one of the most astonishing films ever made.," Akira Kurosawas masterpiece Ran, Strayed by Andr Tchin, The Circle by Jafar Panahi, Yi Yi by Edward Yang, Under the Sand by Franois Ozon and Lorene Machado's Notorious C.H.O. Wellspring has fostered the careers of some of the most important directors in world cinema today including Bruno Dumont (Life of Jesus, Humanit, Twentynine Palms), Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark, Father and Son) Jafar Panahi (The Circle, Crimson Gold), Leos Carax (Mauvais Sang, Pola X), Tsai Ming-liang (The Hole, What Time is It There? Goodbye Dragon Inn), Olivier Assayas (Les Destines), Claire Denis (Friday Night), Bahman Ghobadi (Marooned in Iraq), Liz Garbus (Girlhood), Andr Tchin (Strayed), Marina de Van (In My Skin) and Karim Ainouz (Madame Sat). Wellspring has also been committed to the theatrical re-release of classic films including the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Demy and Franois Truffaut. Together, the Wellspring Home Entertainment and Worldwide Sales libraries boast over 1,000 titles including major works by Franois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Luchino Visconti, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, The Taviani Brothers, Peter Greenaway, Jacques Demy, Akira Kurosawa, Pedro Almodvar, Michelangelo Antonioni and Lina Wertmller among others. Wellsprings Direct Response unit sells arthouse and specialty video/DVD titles via The Video Collection and the artfilm collection direct mail consumer catalogs and websites, www.videocollection.com and www.artfilmcollection.com. Wellspring Media, Inc. is a division of American Vantage Media Corporation, a whollyowned subsidiary of American Vantage Companies (NASDAQ: AVCS).

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