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"   Catherine Deneuve &amp;amp;amp; G\u00E9rard Depardieu in Potiche. Photo: Music Box Films  While Paris is the epicenter of fashion this week, the city itself is the focus New York&amp;#039;s film industry. Catherine Deneuve, the legendary French actress and iconic beauty, attended the U.S. premiere of her new film Potiche last week to celebrate the opening night of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, an annual showcase of contemporary French film presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance Films. Deneuve stars with G\u00E9rard Depardieu (a pairing akin to Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro) and she plays Suzanne Pujol, a rarefied bourgeoisie housewife (&amp;quot;potiche&amp;quot; translates to &amp;quot;trophy wife&amp;quot;) to Depardieu&amp;#039;s rough-hewn proletariat union leader, Maurice Babin. When her insufferably chauvinistic and philandering husband, who runs her father&amp;#039;s umbrella factory, is taken hostage by striking workers, Suzanne steps in to manage the factory and is thrown together with Babin, with whom she once shared a youthful tryst. Deneuve and Depardieu have done six films together, beginning in 1980 with Fran\u00E7ois Truffaut&amp;#039;s The Last Metro, which won ten C\u00E9sars (including Best Actor and Best Actress) and they make magic in Potiche. Deneuve said, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s so natural. I love and admire [Depardieu] enormously. He&amp;#039;s an actor who is so present and warm with his partners. Plus he&amp;#039;s funny. He doesn&amp;#039;t like to rehearse, he likes to shoot, he has a tendency to want to speed things up. I think G\u00E9rard really had fun playing this union man. He was a natural in the part, it just flowed. G\u00E9rard&amp;#039;s acting style is direct and instinctive. With G\u00E9rard, you can change things at the last minute.&amp;quot; The film is nominated for four C\u00E9sars, including Best Actress. It&amp;#039;s written and directed by Fran\u00E7ois Ozon (adapted from the Barillet /Gr\u00E9dy play) and is a very funny satire of 70&amp;#039;s pop culture with Brady Bunch-style graphics and a Saturday Night Fever spoof, as well as a screenplay that could teach most Hollywood writers a thing or two. It zigs when the audience expects it to zag, with unexpected turns from the paternity of Suzanne&amp;#039;s son, to whether she and Babin will reconcile, and her running for political office. It recalls the original women&amp;#039;s movement film, 9 to 5, but suggests that feminism in the workplace may be most effective when women embrace their warmth and humanity rather than emulating men&amp;#039;s aggressive management style. &amp;quot;Things have changed in thirty years, of course, but not that much, actually,&amp;quot; said Deneuve. &amp;quot;The play takes place in the 70s, but so much of what happens in it is still happening today: strikes, employers being held hostage, women not having much power, at least compared to men. That struggle is far from being over.&amp;quot; Unlike the U.S., the French generally eschew cosmetic surgery, allowing even its movie stars to age gracefully. Laughing, Deneuve told us, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t have many beauty secrets, but I live very much outside, you know? I&amp;#039;m not a country girl, but almost. I&amp;#039;m quite healthy. I don&amp;#039;t diet, but I try to eat natural foods and not what you&amp;#039;d call junk food.&amp;quot; As part of the Rendez-Vouz festival, UniFrance Films and BAMcin\u00E9matek will also co-present a Catherine Deneuve retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, including 25 films of Deneuve&amp;#039;s classic films, through March 31 before it tours nationally and heads to Los Angeles (LACMA, Mar 4\u201412); Pleasantville, NY (Jacob Burns Film Center, Mar 4\u201423); Chicago (Music Box Theatre); Boston (The Brattle Theatre); Seattle; San Francisco; and Portland, OR. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a5983/catherine-deneuve-a-moment-the-legend-16870/>