Before topping the 84th Academy® Awards with ten nominations for the French silent film, The Artist, Golden Globe® winner and Oscar-nominee Jean Dujardin (‘Best Actor’ – The Artist), Oscar-nominated Director Michel Hazanavicius, and Oscar-nominated actress Berenice Bejo teamed up in the acclaimed and ultra-hip French comedies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and its sequel, OSS 117: Lost in Rio.
Oscar Nominees Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo in OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES (Courtesy of Music Box Films)
For audiences that may have missed these earlier works by the Oscar-nominated alliance when they were first issued by Music Box Films Home Entertainment, NOW is the time to get in on the action!
Directed by Hazanavicius, both OSS 117 films stars Jean Dujardin, whose “arched-eyebrow perfection” (LA Weekly) caught critics’ attention and praise as the cool, cunning and completely clueless Pride of the French Secret Service. Berenice Bejo also joins the all-star Oscar-nominated cast in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. Together the actor/director pair showed off early signs of magic as New York Magazine’s ‘Critic’s Pick’, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, topped the box office in France, and received 5 Cesar Award nominations including ‘Best Actor.’
Speaking candidly of Dujardin during production, “[Dujardin] and I both felt immediately that we were going to really enjoy ourselves,” says director Hazanavicius of his OSS 117 star, “I became quickly aware of his acting capacity. He has an acting palette few actors possess.”
“We worked in complete mutual confidence,” he added, praising his collaboration with Dujardin.
Both OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio are embellished with Sixties-era flourishes, a Bossa Nova-flavored retro score, split-screen cinematography, overwrought gunfights, and an “inspired piece of silliness” (Vogue Magazine). Otherwise known as OSS 117, the womanizing, ethnically insensitive and wholly imbecilic French secret agent, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, presents a combination of James Bond, Inspector Clouseau, and Matt Helm all rolled into one.
“We are honored to have seen these two incredible talents during their first collaboration together,” says Ed Arentz, Managing Director of Music Box Films. “They are a force to be reckoned with and we hope that audiences will get around to adding their masterful early works to their quo.”
Dujardin has been nominated for ‘Best Actor in a Leading Role’ at this year’s Oscar, after taking ‘Best Actor’ award at the Golden Globes, for The Artist, not to mention his first win at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Director Michel Hazanavicius is Oscar-nominated for Director, while Berenice Bejo picks up a nomination for her Supporting Role in The Artist. Additionally, it has been recently confirmed that French producer, Thomas Langmann, has inked DuJardin in his next film project alongside another French leading man, Vincent Cassel, who previously worked with Langmann in another Music Box Film release, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy #1.
Both films are currently available on DVD and VOD by Music Box Films Home Entertainment.
Tags: Academy Award, Cairo Nest of Spies, Jean Dujardin, Lost in Rio, Michel Hazanavicius, Music Box Films, Nominees, OSS 117, The Artist
