Le Concert

Le Concert is a 2009 French comedy film by Radu Mihăileanu starring Aleksei Guskov, Mélanie Laurent and Miou-Miou. It won the Best Original Score and Best Sound awards at César Awards 2010. It was also nominated for two Magritte Awards in the category of Best Film in Coproduction and Best Editing for Ludo Troch in 2011, and Best Foreign Film at the 68th Golden Globe Awards.

Plot

A former world-famous conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra, known as "The Maestro," Andrey Simonovich Filipov, had had his career publicly broken by Leonid Brezhnev for defending Jewish musicians and is reduced to working as a mere janitor in the theatre where he once conducted, becoming an alcoholic in the process.

While cleaning his boss's office, he intercepts an official invitation from the prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris to replace a concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra that was canceled at the last minute. Filipov comes up with a plan to reunite his old orchestra, composed of old Jewish and Gypsy musicians - who also have been reduced to making a living as movers or taxi drivers - to perform in Paris and complete a performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, which was interrupted 30 years earlier by former KGB Agent Ivan Gavrilov, who is enrolled by Filipov in his scheme as the orchestra's manager and is actively and efficiently supporting Filipov's plan, much to the dismay of Aleksandr 'Sasha' Abramovich Grossman (the orchestra's main cellist), because he suspects that Gavrilov has his own agenda for the Paris trip.

France

France (French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and has a total population of 66.6 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. The Constitution of France establishes the state as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people.

During the Iron Age, what is now Metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which held Gaul until 486. The Gallo-Romans faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening French state-building and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy. During the Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the beginning of a global colonial empire. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).

France Ô

France Ô (pronounced: [fʁɑ̃s o]) is a French public television network featuring programming from the French overseas departments and collectivities in Metropolitan France. It is part of the France Télévisions group. Its overseas counterpart is Outre-Mer 1ère.

It is available through cable, satellite, ADSL and the new digital terrestrial television system.

Formerly known as RFO Sat, the channel was originally broadcasting 9 hours per day only. It was re-branded France Ô in 2004 in order to better show it was part of the France Télévisions group. The "O" stands for Outre-mer (overseas), and the accent shows that the channel was opened to all accents and dialects of the world, but also ensures that the name of the channel is not read as France 0 ("France zéro").

The channel became available in overseas territories in November 2010, replacing the RFO-operated Tempo.

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French wine

French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world. French wine traces its history to the 6th century BC, with many of France's regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times. The wines produced range from expensive high-end wines sold internationally to more modest wines usually only seen within France as the Margnat wines were during the post war period.

Two concepts central to higher end French wines are the notion of "terroir", which links the style of the wines to the specific locations where the grapes are grown and the wine is made, and the Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system. Appellation rules closely define which grape varieties and winemaking practices are approved for classification in each of France's several hundred geographically defined appellations, which can cover entire regions, individual villages or even specific vineyards.