Hollywood hommage "The Artist" to open Athens International Film Festival

The Artist, the breakout film of the Cannes Film Festival, which gave its lead actor, Jean Dujardin, the Best Actor award, will be the opening film of the 17th Athens International Film Festival - Opening Nights Conn-x.

Michel Hazanavicius’ film is the most original homage to cinema ever made: silent and in black and white, it manages in the end, with its optimism and sense of humour, to fill the theatre with sounds and colours.

A glamorous and self-satisfied super star, George Valentin (Dujardin), the most important actor in Hollywood during the silent era, meets Peppy Miller, an ambitious, up-and-coming starlet madly in love with him, played by Hazanavicius’ real-life wife, Bérénice Bejo. Their lives are thrown together and, while Miller’s star is shining brighter every day, Valentin’s celebrity is crumbling down alongside silent films. The talkies find our hero unable to keep up with the new reality, while melodrama is mixed with comedy, lifting the movie through constant twists and turns.

This hilarious and infinitely tender French production references all genres of classic cinema, with nods to Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau.

The 17th Athens International Film Festival – Opening Nights Conn-x will take place from the 14th till the 25th September (at Attikon Cinemax Class, Apollon Cinemax Class, Danaos Cinema 1 and Danaos Cinema 2 cinemas) and, like every year, its line-up will include more than 120 subversive films, original gems of the independent cinema, big premieres of upcoming releases and of course the best musical documentaries from all over the world.

The Artist will be released in cinemas on 22nd December by Feelgood Entertainment.