Fernando Trueba, The Artist and the Model

Fernando Trueba, Spain’s Oscar-winning filmmaker for 1992’s “Belle Époque,” returns with “The Artist and the Model”. The film is a long-delayed personal project that stars France’s legendary Jean Rochefort. He plays a renowned sculptor whose passion is reignited by a free spirited country girl (played by Aida Folch). Trueba explains why he chose to film in French and in black-and-white, the film’s 1943 WWII French setting and the exuberant, earthy vitality that connects Spanish actress Folch with Italy’s Claudia Cardinale. Cardinale plays the sculptor’s wife; in the early 1960s she entranced the world in Visconti’s “The Leopard” and Fellini’s “8 ½.”

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