Trésor (Claude Berri and François Dupeyron)

[pro-bassoonist]

Claude Berri and François Dupeyron's Trésor (2009) has received a preliminary release date for the Gallic markets: April 14th.

The New York Times on Mr. Berri, who passed away last year:

Claude Berri, who as a director, producer, screenwriter and actor was among the most influential figures in the French film industry over the past 40 years, died Monday in Paris. He was 74 and was described after his death by President Nicolas Sarkozy as “the great ambassador of French cinema” to the world.

The cause was a stroke, his agent, Dominique Segall, said in a statement. Mr. Berri had been admitted to the hospital on Saturday with a “cerebral vascular problem,” he said.

Mr. Berri was, by and large, a filmmaker of mainstream sensibility who favored stories of either quirky charm — many drawn from his own life — or grand sweep. His best known films as a director include “The Two of Us” (1967), which tells a story much like that of his own childhood during the Nazi occupation of France, in which a Jewish boy is schooled in Catholicism and sent off to live with an anti-Semitic old man; and the twin 1986 films “Jean de Florette” and “Manon des Sources” (“Manon of the Springs”), together an extravagant adaptation of a classic French novel set in Provence by Marcel Pagnol, “L’Eau des Collines” (“Water of the Hills”).

But he was probably more influential as a producer, working with directors like Milos Forman (“Valmont”), Roman Polanski (“Tess”) and Philippe de Broca (“L’Africain”).

With his penchant for lush cinematography and scoring and audience-pleasing plot resolution, Mr. Berri was often credited with melding the wry, oblique sensibility of French New Age cinema with the more commercial outlook of Hollywood. Often described as impulsive, imperious and driven, he nonetheless worked successfully with star performers like Yves Montand, Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart and Gérard Depardieu.

He did not get along with everyone, however. On the set of his 1997 film, “Lucie Aubrac,” based on the life of a heroine of the French resistance, he abruptly fired his lead actress, Juliette Binoche, for having too many opinions about how she should play the role.

“When a director is so possessive about his film it’s a nightmare,” Ms. Binoche said in an interview in The New York Times shortly after her dismissal. “You can’t work with someone like that.”

Mr. Berri’s early work as a director included several comedies in which he played himself or someone very much like him: a character, often named Claude, with a sentimental devotion to his parents and a goofy, Chaplin-esque weakness for women. Among these films were “Mazel Tov, ou Le Mariage,” (“Marry Me! Marry Me!”); “Le Sex Shop,” “Le Cinema de Papa,” and “Le Mâle du Siècle” (“Male of the Century”).

Mr. Berri was a contemporary and friend of François Truffaut, and his work was often compared, though not always favorably, to the Truffaut trilogy — “Les 400 Coups” (“The 400 Blows”); “Baisers Volés” (“Stolen Kisses”) and “Domicile Conjugal” (“Bed and Board”), which featured Truffaut’s alter ego, Antoine Doinel.

Among Mr. Berri’s grander projects were “Germinal,” an adaptation of Zola’s 19th-century novel about exploited French coal miners, and “Uranus,” a brooding film about French collaborators during the war that probes the nature of their guilt. Both starred Mr. Depardieu.

At his death Mr. Berri was directing his 20th film, “Trésor” (“Treasure”), a marital comedy. “Berri was laughing all the time on the set,” Alain Chabat, who was starring in the film, said in an interview on Monday. He last saw Mr. Berri on Thursday, he said. Mr. Chabat described the director as “brilliant and curious, a very funny guy with incredible intuition,” who was nonetheless sure of his own mind and a bit of a martinet.

“He was very precise, very demanding on a set,” and “very honest,” Mr. Chabat said. “Sometimes his honesty would go too far.”

Claude Berel Langmann — he changed his name as an adult for professional reasons, so it would sound more French — was born in Paris on July 1, 1934. His parents, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, placed their son in the care of a non-Jewish family during the occupation. They worked as furriers, and after the war young Claude, who had been an indifferent student, started his work life alongside them until he began taking acting classes.

His first film, a short called “Le Poulet” (“The Chicken”), made with loans from friends, was about a boy who tries to save a pet from becoming dinner by sneaking an egg into its nest every morning. He was wholly inexperienced as a director, but his instincts were sure; it received notice at the Venice Biennale and eventually made it to the United States, winning a 1965 Academy Award — his only one — for best short film.

The investment his friends made in “The Chicken” turned into a company, Renn Productions, that made dozens of films. In the late 1980s Mr. Berri sold half the company — then worth about $50 million — to support a new hobby, collecting contemporary art. His collection eventually included works by Cy Twombly, Yves Klein and Robert Ryman and became one of the most important in France.

His survivors include two sons, Darius and Thomas, and a sister, Arlette.

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