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Home , Darling Companion, David Atrakchi, Dominique Pinon, Israel Horovitz, I Love You to Death, Kevin Kline

PRESENTE / PRESENTEERT

MY OLD LADY (TRÈS CHÈRE MATHILDE)

un film de / een film van avec / met , , , Stéphane Freiss, , Noémie Lvovsky

Film adapté de sa pièce de théâtre à succès Très chère Mathilde. Verfilming van zijn bekroonde toneelstuk My Old Lady.

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014 BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2014

UK, USA, /Frankrijk - 2014 - DCP - couleur/kleur - 1:2.35 - VO ST BIL / OV FR/NL OT - 106'

distribution / distributie: IMAGINE

SORTIE NATIONALE RELEASE 3/12/2014

T : 02 331 64 31 / F : 02 331 64 34 / M : 0499 25 25 43 photos / foto’s : www.imaginefilm.be/PRO

SYNOPSIS

FR

Mathias, quinquagénaire new-yorkais fauché, arrive à pour vendre l'appartement que lui a légué son père. Il découvre que cette belle demeure est habitée par une vieille dame, Mathilde, qui vit en compagnie de sa fille Chloé. Il apprend bientôt que Mathilde et son père furent amants.

NL

Mathias, een aan lager wal geraakte New Yorkse vijftiger, komt in Parijs aan om het appartement dat zijn vader hem naliet, te verkopen. Hij ontdekt dat het prachtige huis bewoond wordt door een kranige 90-jarige vrouw, Mathilde, en haar dochter Chloé. Hij komt ook vrij snel te weten dat Mathilde en zijn vader geliefden waren.

EN

Penniless New Yorker Mathias travels to Paris to liquidate a huge apartment he has inherited from his estranged father. He is stunned to find a refined old lady (Mathilde) living there with her very protective daughter. He soon learns that under ancient French law, he will not actually gain possession of the apartment until Mathilde dies.

With its unique blend of comedy, drama and, ultimately, romance, MY OLD LADY marks the directorial debut of internationally celebrated playwright-screenwriter Israel Horovitz.

TAGLINE

HE’S IN THE WILL. SHE’S IN THE WAY.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Viager: a well-established equity release plan in France, which, broadly speaking, allows the release of cash to a property owner in return for an interest in the property on the owner's death. (It is more common for property owners over the age of 70, to consider such a transaction.) On the flip side, the viager is also advantageous to a buyer who wishes to purchase investment property rather than to purchase a home for himself.

Before MY OLD LADY was a film, it was a hit play, premiering in City at the Promenade Theater on West 76th Street in October 2002, before a lengthy run abroad, including productions in Germany, Russia, and of course, France. At the heart of both movie and play is the murky French real estate arrangement known as the viager, in which the buyer pays a monthly fee to the seller in lieu of a lump sum, forgoing the right to occupy the property until the seller's death. For the buyer's heirs, however, this can turn a simple inheritance into a years-long ordeal if the seller is in good health.

Enter Mathias Gold, a hapless New Yorker, at once childless, spouse-less, and penniless, having spent the bulk of his almost sixty years basking in resentment towards his estranged businessman father. Mathias hopes to quickly sell the apartment bequeathed to him, as Paris calls to mind his father's frequent trips to the city, which placed a strain on his parents' marriage, culminating in his mother's suicide.

For the movie version, Horovitz sought to both simplify and broaden aspects of his story. Mathilde became an Englishwoman living in France, eliminating any language barrier among characters while allowing the viager concept to occupy a more central presence in the story. "It's such a rare and uniquely French tradition," Horovitz admits. "France is the only country I know where it's active and present. I'd always envisioned an American placed in this mix as a foil, because the concept is explosive to an American mind: You put your money down on a property, essentially betting that somebody's going to die sooner rather than later."

Horovitz also expanded the play's setting to include a grander, more cinematic vision of Paris than the one that was merely implied on stage. "The play is populated by three actors in one room, and the decision to expand the film's setting wasn't because I felt the story was too contained in that room, or didn't work," Horovitz explains. "I just felt that images of Paris would add another huge dimension to the story."

Horovitz is no stranger to the French capital, having first basked in the city's many cultural delights in his early 20s, as a drama student in London, where he was the first American to be chosen as the playwright-in-residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Traveling with his wife and newborn daughter, Rachael, who would go on to co-produce the film MY OLD LADY, to visit his parents, who were vacationing in Paris, Horovitz fell instantly in love with the City of Lights. "As soon as my feet touched down in Paris, I did all the American stuff," he explains. "Tracking down Sylvia Beach's bookstore, visiting the Café Flore and Les Deux Magots, where I saw Simone de Beauvoir sitting alone on the terrace, smoking and writing in a notebook. I smiled at her and she smiled back at me — I was flirting with Simone de Beauvoir on my first visit to Paris!"

After five decades spent adoring Paris, Horovitz sought to write a play and subsequent screenplay that would be a kind of valentine to the French capital, culminating in 2002's off- Broadway production MY OLD LADY starring Siân Phillips as Mathilde, Peter Friedman as Mathias and Jan Maxwell as Chloé. A screenplay adaptation followed several years later, with Horovitz cohort Kevin Kline dropping by the playwright's Greenwich Village residence for intermittent readings as the film script branched out from its theatrical roots.

Dame Maggie Smith was the first actor to officially sign on to the film version, for the role of 92-year-old Mathilde Girard. Horovitz traveled to London to meet with the stage and screen veteran, who accepted the part amid 25 competing scripts offered to her at the time. Horovitz recalls Smith joking during the meeting that it was the only script in the stack that didn't end with her character dying. Adds Horovitz: "To my knowledge, it's the first time Dame Maggie's done a movie in which she doesn't wear a wig."

Never mind the fact that Smith appears in MY OLD LADY with minimal make-up. "I wanted a specific reality to Mathilde — I didn't want the audience to feel like there was anything between them and her," Horovitz continues. "Maggie Smith isn't even close to being in her 90s, but she had had to act as if she were, and I didn't want it to be artificial, like something we painted on her — because nobody would believe it. She totally got it, and arrived on set with minimal makeup and no wig and delivered a totally believable performance." Producer marveled at Maggie's transformation into Mathilde. "It was stunning to watch her transform herself without wigs and props," Horovitz recalls. "She was using pure acting skill to turn into this character that was so many years older than herself."

Kevin Kline's considerable body of work over several decades on both stage and screen — including an Academy Award for his work in (1988) — made him ideally suited to the central role of Mathias Gold, the slightly bumbling and adrift middle-aged New Yorker who travels to Paris thinking he's about to strike pay dirt through the quick sale of an inherited apartment, only to discover real-estate and relationship turmoil that sends his broken life in a new direction.

Kline came to the production semi-attached, having helped his friend Israel Horovitz develop the Mathias character, warming to the character and readily agreeing to take the part because — as Kline quipped to Horovitz during its gestation from stage to screen — it might be the last time as an actor that he gets the girl. Kline brings to MY OLD LADY a career- sampling aptitude for droll comedy, serious gravitas and musical talent, culled from years of stellar work in everything from Sophie’s Choice and The Big Chill to his stage work in (for which he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical) as well as plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and Shaw.

"Kevin has marvelous instincts as an actor," insists Horovitz. "He has an uncanny ability to give a director several variations on the same scene — a lighter one, a heavier one, but always a truthful one. Thus, in editing, I had everything I needed to capture the sort of tragi- comic performance our film demanded. Kevin gives a great performance as Mathias. His work, for me, defines thrilling."

Producers Rachael Horovitz (, HBO's Grey Garden) and Gary Foster (The Soloist, Sleepless in Seattle) got the script to Kristin Scott Thomas, who signed on immediately to play Mathilde's confrontational daughter Chloé, having already worked with Kevin Kline on 's Life as a House in 2001. (Producer-director Winkler was best man in Israel's wedding, and the two had worked together previously on the 1982 comedy Author! Author! starring ). Furthermore, Scott Thomas and Smith had already played mother and daughter on two previous occasions — in 2001's Gosford Park and 2005's Keeping Mum, giving MY OLD LADY a friends-and-family pedigree that dovetailed well with the script's intimate tone and trajectory. The central cast was complete in early 2013, and MY OLD LADY was ready to go before cameras in Paris later that year.

A significant difference between stage play and screenplay, according to Horovitz, is found in the development of the Chloé character, which has a much bigger presence in the film as Mathias' nemesis- turned-unexpected-love interest. "I had long seen MY OLD LADY as Mathias' journey — his story with the old woman, hence the possessive "my" in the title,"

Horovitz explains. "But it's ultimately the story of two people who have been destroyed by the same love affair. They'll never meet anybody in their lives who understands their problems better than each other."

To flesh out Scott Thomas' Chloé, and to extend the story outside the confines of the apartment, Horovitz opted to give Chloé a lover in the screenplay — a married man with children — heightening the stakes for Mathias as he compiles evidence and goes to war with the Girards over his claim on the apartment. Adds Horovitz: "Kristin is stunning, so without Kristin's mining Chloé's neurotic anger, it would have been impossible to believe she wouldn't have ten guys falling at her feet. For this reason it was difficult to cast the lover character — if I'd cast a classically handsome, athletic guy, it might have given the audience an incorrect definition of Chloé."

To round out MY OLD LADY's robust cast, and to emphasize the more ordinary, workaday aspects of its Parisian setting, Horovitz cast a slew of veteran French character actors in vital supporting roles, including Dominique Pinon as the helpful real-estate agent Lefebvre, who indoctrinates Mathias into the complex codes of the viager system. French film aficionados will recognize Pinon's distinct facial features from his work in everything from Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1982) to the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, including Amelie (1999) and (2004). "As Kevin, Maggie, Kristin, Dominique and I all come from a strong theatre background, we are all workaholics, and shared an easy dialogue on the set," insists Horovitz. "It was a joy for me to direct these actors, and I took advice that Sidney Lumet gave me some years ago: Cast great actors ... and then stay out of their way."

Writer-director-actress Noémie Lvovsky appears in a small role as Madame Girard's physician, while actor-director Stéphane Freiss (who is well known for his performance in the 2008 French smash Welcome to the Sticks) and actor and TV personality Stéphane De Groodt contribute memorable work, respectively, as the rapacious property developer François Roy (a.k.a. Wah- Wah) who wants to buy Mathias's apartment and turn it into a sleek hotel, and the philandering married lover of Chloé.

Much of MY OLD LADY was shot in la Manufacture, located in les Gobelins in Paris's 13th Arrondissement, operated and maintained by the French Ministry of Culture. A vast complex comprising several main buildings and a slew of apartments (now used to house government functionaries), la Manufacture is the historical site of tapestry manufacturing for French royalty dating from the 17th century to the present day.

Because there is no longer a huge demand for artisan tapestries in France, la Manufacture doubles as an ersatz soundstage for film and television productions — in the case of MY OLD LADY standing in for the more-central and tourist-trod Marais, where Madame Girard and Chloé reside. Owing to the Marais' disruptive traffic and cramped, winding streets, Horovitz and crew jumped at the chance to shoot inside the pristine Manufacture compound in the Gobelins, where the Girards' sprawling residence, overlooking a verdant garden, was brought to life by the French crew as a Marais apartment. "Almost the entire movie was shot inside the compound," Horovitz admits. "At one point in its history, la Manufacture was its own city within the city, with a thousand people living there. We could park our trucks inside the gated compound and shoot in a way we never could in the busy Marais. Finding the apartment we used, with its creaky floors and general disrepair, was really what made the movie possible. It was like having our own little studio."

Although MY OLD LADY is Horovitz's debut feature as a director, the veteran playwright is no stranger to the motion picture industry, having written the screenplay for The Strawberry Statement, which won the Jury Prize at the 1970 . He collaborated with István Szabó on the screenplay for the 1999 historical drama Sunshine, which tracked a

Jewish family living in Hungary during the turbulent first half of the 20th century. Horovitz and Szabó shared the European Film Award for their screenplay. Horovitz also wrote the teleplay for Mark Rydell's 2001 Emmy and Golden Globe- nominated James Dean biopic, starring . He also wrote, directed and starred in the award- winning 2002 documentary 3 Weeks After Paradise, detailing his own frustrating efforts to locate his young son in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Despite his seasoned screenwriting work, Horovitz had avoided movie directing, mainly owing to his worldwide activity as a playwright. Decades into his successful playwriting career, inspired by years of commuting back and forth to Paris for productions of his plays from his homes in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and , Horovitz completed the MY OLD LADY screenplay with the intention of making it his big-screen directorial debut.

MY OLD LADY shot in Paris for 24 days in autumn 2013. Production duties on the film were split between Horovitz's daughter, Rachael, whose recent hits include HBO's Emmy- and Golden Globe- winning Grey Gardens, starring and , and 's Academy Award-nominated Moneyball, starring and , and Gary Foster, whose extensive credits include Sleepless in Seattle and the hit NBC sitcom Community. Industry veterans both, Horovitz and Foster jumped at the chance to work with Israel on his feature directorial debut. "He may have just turned 75 but Israel is as vibrant and capable as a 35-year-old," insists Foster. "I've worked with younger directors for whom I've had more fears about physical well-being than Israel at his age. The fact that he's directing a story about an elderly woman and a man in his fifties — well, he's kind of lived that, which was a huge plus because he could bring so much life experience to it."

Rachael Horovitz was attracted to MY OLD LADY for several reasons, including its rich casting potential and Parisian locale — she traveled to the city frequently as a child and lived there briefly when she was 21 — but also because it gave her an opportunity to work with her father, who she describes as "the most prepared director I've ever worked with." Above all, she praises Horovitz père for his professionalism, sense of humor and grace under pressure, each one a boon for the intimate, familial- themed MY OLD LADY. "There is real humanity in this film thanks to those factors," she concludes. "Working with a family member is always a pleasure because there is the shorthand of communication you have with few others."

Foster also praises Israel Horovitz for his human touch, including his considerable grasp of human nature and conflict, honed through years of dedicated stage work. "This movie is at its core about family and how people deal with the many challenges in their lives," Foster insists. "Everyone has harbored secrets at some point. MY OLD LADY examines how people with secrets reveal themselves emotionally in order to locate truth. What's special about Israel's craft is how organic and truthful it feels. So much of this movie depends on the actors working with dialogue-rich scenes set inside cramped rooms with little action and no special effects — you have to buy into the dimensionality of these characters. Israel is at his best writing and directing scenes that feel real, as though you were a fly on the wall amid the revealing of this family's secrets. He's not afraid of being overly sentimental and open with emotions, and I think that's hugely valuable."

ABOUT THE CAST

KEVIN KLINE (Mathias Gold) has seamlessly transitioned between the worlds of theater and film and has earned equal distinction in both. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award and two . He was last seen on the big screen in the CBS Films comedy , starring alongside , and . He will next appear as in The Last of Robin Hood, which chronicles the final years of the screen icon's life, and in Israel Horovitz’s feature film directorial debut, MY OLD LADY. He appeared recently in 's The Conspirator and in 's , marking Kline's sixth collaboration with the filmmaker. He also earned rave reviews for his first-ever French-language performance in Caroline Bottaro's Queen to Play, opposite Sandrine Bonnaire.

In addition to his 1988 Academy Award for his role in the comedy A Fish Called Wanda and a 2008 Award for HBO's , Kline is a five-time Golden Globe nominee, for his roles in Sophie’s Choice, , In & Out, Soapdish and De-Lovely; and he earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination for his performance in Life as a House. He was also the recipient of a Career Tribute at the 1997 Gotham Independent Film Awards. Additional film credits include The Big Chill, Silverado, , Grand Canyon, French Kiss, , The Ice Storm, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, , , , The Emperor’s Club, , The Extra Man, Chaplin and Trade, for which he won the CineMerit Award at the Munich Film Festival.

A Juilliard graduate, Kline made his Broadway debut playing Vershinin in Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters for 's The Acting Company, of which he is a founding member. For Hal Prince's , he won both a Tony and a , and for The Pirates of Penzance, which had a successful run at before transferring to Broadway, he again won both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award, as well as the for Outstanding Achievement by an actor.

Most recently, Kline was seen on Broadway in the critically acclaimed Cyrano de Bergerac, for which he received an Outer Critics Circle Award. Additionally, this is Kline's second staged production to air on PBS' Series. The production earned him Emmy and SAG Award nominations.

DAME MAGGIE SMITH (Mathilde) made her debut with the Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS) as Viola in 1952 and since then has been awarded two , countless Best Actress Awards, and has been honoured with both the CBE and DBE. She received the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize in 1991, is a Fellow of the BFI, and was awarded a Silver BAFTA in 1993. She is an Honorary D.Litt of Cambridge University and St Andrews, and is a patron of the Jane Austen Society. Film credits include Oh, What A Lovely War!, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Death on the Nile, Travels With My Aunt, California Suite, A Private Function, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Hook, Sister Act, The Secret Garden, Richard III, First Wives Club, Washington Square, Tea With Mussolini, The Last September, Gosford Park, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Keeping Mum, Becoming Jane, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Quartet. She is also known worldwide as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. Maggie also recently filmed The Best Marigold Hotel.

KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS (Chloé) is an English actress who gained international recognition in the 1990’s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and A Funeral, for which she won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and The English Patient for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Among her subsequent films are Gosford Park, in which she played Lady Sylvia McCordle, Mission: Impossible, The Horse Whisperer, Keeping Mum, Nowhere Boy, Easy Virtue, and Ne le dis à personne by French director Guillaume Canet. In addition, Scott Thomas received many accolades for her performance in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress.

Last year, Scott Thomas teamed up with director Nicolas Winding Refn for Only God Forgives, and with director for The Invisible Woman. She also performed on stage in ’s Old Times, and co-stars, along with Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith, in Israel Horovitz’s directorial debut feature film, MY OLD LADY.

DOMINIQUE PINON (Lefebvre) is a French actor born in 1955 in Saumur. In the early 80s, Pinon establishes himself as a “face” of French cinema. He becomes French director Jean- Pierre Jeunet’s cherished actor, starring in all his films, starting with Delicatessen (1991). Thanks to his collaboration with Jeunet, Pinon makes a name across the Atlantic with (1997) and Amelie (2001). Pinon’s recent work includes Jeunet’s latest film, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, and Israel Horovitz’s debut film, MY OLD LADY, co- starring with Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas.

NOÉMIE LVOVSKY (Dr. Florence Horowitz) is a French director, screenwriter and actress, born in 1964 in Paris. In 1989, she graduated in screenwriting from the Fémis (French National Film School). She begins her career as an actress in Yvan Attal’s Ma femme est une actrice, for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Césars (French Academy Awards). Over her career, she has been nominated four more times in this category. Lvovsky thrives also as a film director. Her latest film Camille Redouble is both a box office and critical success, with four César nominations, including Best Film and Best Actress for Lvovsky herself.

STÉPHANE FREISS (François Roy) was born in Paris in 1960. After graduating from the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique, he becomes a permanent resident of the prestigious Comédie-Française. He makes his film debut with Agnès Varda and Pierre Jolivet, starring alongside Emmanuelle Béart, in Premiers Désirs (1984). In 1989, he receives the César Award for Most Promising Actor, for his role in Chouans! by Philippe de Broca. In the 2000s, Freiss lands numerous supportive roles in American films, such as Wanted, Munich, and Hereafter.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR/WRITER

MY OLD LADY marks internationally acclaimed playwright-director ISRAEL HOROVITZ’s feature film directorial debut. Horovitz's 70-plus plays have been translated and performed in as many as 30 languages worldwide and have introduced such actors as Al Pacino, , , , Gerard Depardieu, and many others. His screenplays include Author! Author!, The Strawberry Statement (Prix du Jury, Cannes Film Festival), Sunshine (European Academy Award – Best Screenplay), New York, I Love You, James Dean and 3 Weeks After Paradise (the award-winning documentary which Horovitz wrote, directed, and starred in).

A two-time OBIE winner, Horovitz's additional awards include Prix Italia, Sony Radio Academy Award, Writers Guild of Canada Best Screenwriter Award, Christopher Award, Drama Desk Award, Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Lifetime Achievement Award from B’Nai Brith, Boston Public Library’s Literary Lights Award, Massachusetts Governor’s Award and many others. Horovitz’s memoir Un New-Yorkais à Paris (A New Yorker in Paris) was recently published in France, where he is the most- produced American playwright in French theatre history and was recently decorated as Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest honor awarded to foreign artists. He is Founding Artistic Director of Gloucester Stage and active Artistic Director of the New York Playwrights Lab, and is co-artistic director of Compagnia Horovitz- Paciotto in Italy.

NYC’s Barefoot Theatre celebrated Horovitz’s 70th birthday by organizing The 70/70 Horovitz Project, a yearlong event with 70 Horovitz plays having had readings and/or productions by theatres around the globe.

Horovitz is the father of five children: film producer Rachael Horovitz, TV producer Matthew Horovitz, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz, writer Oliver Horovitz and recent Master of Arts recipient Hannah Horovitz. He is married to Gillian Horovitz, England's former National Marathon Champion and record- holder.

Best-known plays include Line (in its 40th year, off-Broadway), The Indian Wants the Bronx, It’s Called The Sugar Plum, Rats, Morning, The Primary English Class, The Wakefield Plays (Alfred the Great, Our Father’s Failing, Alfred Dies, Hopscotch, The 75th, Stage Directions and Spared), The Widow’s Blind Date, The Growing Up Jewish Trilogy (Today, I Am A Fountain Pen, A Rosen By Any Other Name, and The Chopin Playoffs), Park Your Car In Harvard Yard, North Shore Fish, Fighting Over Beverley, Lebensraum, My Old Lady, Unexpected Tenderness, Fast Hands, 6 Hotels (The Wedding Play, Speaking of Tushy, Beirut Rocks, The Audition Play, Fiddleheads and Lovers and 2nd Violin), Compromise, and The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath. Recent plays include The Bump, Sins of the Mother, What Strong Fences Make, The P Word, Virtual Alex and Gloucester Blue, which is currently being performed in regional theatres around the USA.

LISTE ARTISTIQUE / CAST

Mathias Gold / KEVIN KLINE (A Fish Called Wanda, The Ice Storm, Sophie’s Choice, French Kiss)

Chloé Girard / KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS (The English Patient, Only God Forgives, Dans la maison, Elle s’appelait Sarah, Il y a longtemps que je t'aime)

Mathilde Girard / MAGGIE SMITH (Downtown Abbey, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Harry Potter)

Monsieur Lefebvre / DOMINIQUE PINON (Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Delicatessen)

LISTE TECHNIQUE / CREW

Director / ISREAL HOROVITZ Screenplay / ISREAL HOROVITZ Director of photography / MICHEL AMATHIEU Editor / STEPHANIE AHN, JACOB CRAYCROFT Production designer / PIERRE-FRANÇOIS LIMBOSCH Costume Designer / JACQUELINE BOUCHARD Music / MARK ORTON Producers / NITSA BENCHETRIT, DAVID C. BARROT, RACHAEL HOROVITZ, GARY FOSTER Co-producers / , GAËL CABOUAT, BORIS MENDZA, MARIE CÉCILE RENAULD