StudioCanal (a.k.a. Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image) is a French-based production (as StudioCanal S.A.) and distribution (as StudioCanal Images S.A.) company that owns the third-largest film library in the world. The company 50% owned by the Canal+ Group (which is owned by Vivendi SA) and 50% owned by Universal Studios (which is owned by NBCUniversal)

Background[link]

The company was founded in 1988 by Pierre Lescure as a spin-off of the Canal+ pay-TV network. The original function was to focus on French and European productions, but later made strategic deals with American production companies. StudioCanal's most notable productions from its early years include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, JFK, Basic Instinct, Cliffhanger, Under Siege, Free Willy, and the original Stargate movie. In these days, it was known as Le Studio Canal+

It has strong links to Universal Studios (Studiocanal and Universal Studios were owned by the same company between 2000 ans 2004, hence StudioCanal co-produced a fair number of Universal's films. In 2004 When Vivendi merged it media assets with GE to form NBC Universal, it included a 50% in both StudioCanal and Canal+. Even though Vivendi had sold its stake in NBCUniversal, it still owns those stakes in StudioCanal and Canal+ (via the Canal+ Group).

Other films the company financed include U-571, Bully, and Bridget Jones's Diary. StudioCanal also funded the last third of David Lynch's film Mulholland Drive.^[1] StudioCanal also financed French-language films, such as Brotherhood of the Wolf (which became the second-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades) and Intimate Strangers (which is being remade by Hollywood-based Paramount Pictures^[2]).

Film library[link]

StudioCanal acquired film libraries from studios that either went defunct or had merged with it over the years. As a result, the company's library is the third-largest in the world.

StudioCanal's library includes the film libraries of:

• Carolco Pictures (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Basic Instinct, Total Recall, etc.),
• De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (King Kong Lives, Tai-Pan, 3 Days of the Condor, Evil Dead II, international rights to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, etc.),
• Embassy Pictures (The Graduate, This Is Spinal Tap, The Producers, The Emerald Forest, The Sure Thing, etc.),
• the Alexander Salkind pictures not owned by Warner Bros. (including The Trial and Santa Claus: The Movie),
• British Lion Films (The Wicker Man, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Don't Look Now, The Third Man, etc.),
• the films of Anglo-Amalgamated (Peeping Tom, most of the Carry On series, etc.),
• the Ealing Studios library (The Ladykillers, The Cruel Sea, etc.),
• the EMI Films library (Highlander, Death on the Nile, The Go-Between, etc.; also including the ABPC back catalogue, but not including US rights to certain co-productions—said rights to such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind [whose worldwide rights are with Sony Pictures] and The Deer Hunter are owned by other major studios, usually the original releasing studio),
• and the Lumiere Pictures and Television output (including The Avengers).

Distribution[link]

StudioCanal acquired UK-based distributor Optimum Releasing in 2006.^[3] In 2008 StudioCanal acquired German distributor Kinowelt who distributed their films up to that point. Both companies have since been renamed to StudioCanal.

Outside France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, StudioCanal does not have a formal distribution unit per se, relying on other studios and video companies to handle their product, in the United States for example, Criterion, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment, MGM and Universal Pictures, distribute StudioCanal's back catalogue on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

StudioCanal also handles home entertainment distribution of 550 titles from the Miramax Films library internationally (Lions Gate handles US distribution and Alliance Films handles Canadian distribution) since February 2011.^[4][5]

References[link]

1. ^ Mulholland Drive at the Internet Movie Database
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ Variety
4. ^ http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LALCDG3.htm
5. ^ "Lionsgate, Studiocanal and Miramax Enter Into Home Entertainment Distribution Agreements". Yahoo! Finance. February 11, 2011. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lionsgate-Studiocanal-and-prnews-2517243937.html?x=0. 

External links[link]

• Official StudioCanal site

Mélanie Laurent
Laurent at a premiere for Inglourious Basterds in August 2009
Born	(1983-02-21) 21 February 1983 (age 29) Paris, Île-de-France, France
Occupation	Actress, Model, Singer, Writer, Director
Years active	1999–present
Partner	Julien Boisselier (2005–2009)

Mélanie Laurent (born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, director, singer and writer. She is best known to international audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which she won Best Actress from the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics Association.

Early life[link]

Mélanie Laurent was born in Paris, the daughter of Annick, a ballerina,^[1] and Pierre Laurent, a voiceover actor (who dubs the character Ned Flanders in the French version of The Simpsons).^[2][3] Laurent is Jewish, and has both Ashkenazi and Tunisian Sephardic ancestry.^[4][5][6] A grandfather survived deportation by the Nazis.^[6] Her maternal grandparents were film poster editors.^[1] She grew up in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and was immersed from birth in the arts.^[1]

Her career began when Gérard Depardieu, seeing her while she watched her best friend's father working on the set of Asterix and Obelix, asked her if she wanted to be in movies. Laurent replied 'Why not?' and next week his assistant called her. Depardieu gave Laurent a part when she was 16 in The Bridge, a drama he starred in and co-directed with Fréderic Auburtin.^[7]

Career[link]

Laurent has appeared in 20 films between 1999 and 2009. Playing a depressed 19 year-old who longed for her lost twin brother, she starred in Philippe Lioret's I'm Fine, Don't Worry (2006), for which she won a César Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2006, Laurent and Belgian actor Jérémie Renier were awarded France's Romy Schneider and Jean Gabin Prizes for "most promising actor and actress."^[8]

In 2008, Laurent directed and wrote De moins en moins, which was nominated for Best Short Film at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a 7-minute film about a patient who, in front of her psychiatrist, "remembers less and less".^[9] Laurent also directed À ses pieds,^[10] an erotic short film aired on the French television channel Canal+ on 25–26 October 2008, as part of a series of such shorts, called X Femmes, shot by female directors with the goal of producing erotica from a female point of view.^[10]

Laurent was scheduled to direct her first play, Mi-cuit cœur pistache (the name of a dessert she particularly likes) in January 2009 at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris. She had to abandon the project during the preparations and rehearsals when she was cast as Shosanna Dreyfus in the Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds, a French-language role for which she had to learn to speak English for a few scenes.^[11] Her then-partner Julien Boisselier, as well as Marie Denarnaud, Mélanie Doutey and Louise Monot were to act in the production while short movie clips were to be projected on stage, some of them shot at the nightclub Le Baron, which Laurent used to frequent during the writing period.^[12]

Laurent also had planned another feature film, Putain de pluie!, whose script she co-wrote with Morgan Perez and which she intended to direct, produced by Alain Attal's Productions du Trésor. Originally set for filming in the spring of 2009, it was postponed because of her work on Inglourious Basterds.^[12][13] Knowing that she could speak French and had already acted in French in one of the short films in Paris, je t'aime she offered the first role to Natalie Portman, who declined because of the language of the script.^[9] Laurent played the part of the violinist in Radu Mihăileanu's Le Concert—she called it "a smart movie and a popular movie, and I'm glad because French people wanted to watch a movie with classical music."

Mélanie Laurent was the hostess of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 64th Cannes Film Festival.^[14]

Maxime Simoëns, a French designer, calls Laurent his muse for his fashion house based in Paris.

Personal life[link]

Laurent was in a long-term relationship with fellow French actor Julien Boisselier. She describes recording artist Damien Rice and filmographer Quentin Tarantino as two "masters" in terms of their art.^[15] With Rice she is recording her first album between Woodstock, New York and his home in Ireland. Living in his home in Ireland inspired her to maintain a compost heap and eat organic food.^[1][16]

Laurent has visited a Climate Defenders Camp in the peatlands of the Indonesian Rainforest with Greenpeace activists. She is also one of the Climate Ambassadors for Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum "Tck Tck Tck" Campaign.^[17]

Filmography[link]

As actress[link]

As director and writer[link]

Theater[link]

• Promenade de santé by Nicolas Bedos (2010)^[18]

Discography[link]

• En T’Attendant, her debut album, was released on 2 May 2011.^[19]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mélanie Laurent

• Mélanie Laurent at the Internet Movie Database
• Mélanie Laurent at AlloCiné (French)