Directed and co-written by Daniele Thompson ("La Bûche," "Jet Lag"), and selected as France's Official Entry for this year's Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, "Orchestra Seats" centres around Jessica (Cecile de France) a beautiful young woman from the provinces who comes to Paris and lands a job waiting tables at a chic bistro on fabled Avenue Montaigne, the city's nexus for art, music, theatre and fashion. Jessica's customers include a popular TV actress (Valérie Lemercier) who is courting a major Hollywood director (Sydney Pollack) for her first serious film role; a wealthy art collector (Claude Brasseur) who is about to liquidate a lifetime's worth of treasures at auction; and an illustrious classical pianist (Albert Dupontel) who is at odds with his manager/wife (Laura Morante) as to where his career is headed. Precisely because Jessica doesn't know how celebrated these people are, her guileless and completely unintimidated engagement in their lives has a transforming effect on them and ultimately on her. Orchestra Seats will be released in the UK on 23rd February 2007 Optimum Releasing - Orchestra SeatsCatherine’s a star on TV – hugely popular and adored by everyone – but all she dreams about is serious movies and intellectual recognition. By night, she records her 100th episode and by day, rehearses a play at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées theater. She’s overworked but the show opens on the 17th, and you’ve got to be up to playing in a Feydeau farce, even if you’d prefer to be doing Sartre.Jean-François is a gifted pianist – adored and overbooked – and on the 17th will be playing Beethoven next door, in one of the finest concert halls in the world, with the most talented musicians and the most sophisticated of audiences. But all he dreams about is solitude, freedom, and an uncultivated and naïve audience. Jacques has spent his life seeking out and discovering artists, raiding his piggy bank to collect rare works of art. On the 17th, Jacques will sell the lot.In one single evening, his life’s work will be split up and scattered around the world. Jessica’s grandmother, a former five-star hotel lavatory attendant, once told her: “I didn’t have the means to live in luxury, so I decided to work in it instead”. One day Jessica too tries her luck in Paris. On the 17th, the café opposite the two theaters and the saleroom needs extra help and Jessica gets the job.
This is where they all come – actress, pianist, waitress, concierge, collector, son of one, wife of another– to nurse their neuroses over a coffee or a steak tartare. Confronted by this world she once believed was magical, Jessica loses her illusions but she does find the key to a new life – watch out for the FAUTEUILS D’ORCHESTRE – too far away and you miss half the show, too close and you see nothing at all.Orchestra Seats