Christian Clavier ( born 6 May 1952 in Paris) is a French actor. He is the brother of French film director Stéphane Clavier.

After his high class studies at the Neuilly Lycée Pasteur—though asserted here and there, he never studied at Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) —he started his acting career with the comedic theater troupe Splendid, which had hits with films like Les Bronzés font du ski and Le Père Noël est une ordure.

His most notable success without the Splendid group, and by far his biggest hit to date, was in the 1993 film les Visiteurs, where he played a character known as Jacquouille la fripouille; the character’s cry of “Okkkayyy!!” became a popular exclamation after the movie’s success.
After les Visiteurs he was a certified star, participating in big-budget films like Astérix et Obélix contre César, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre, and the sequel and remake of Visiteurs. He also played several dramatic roles on television, including M. Thénardier in Les Misérables (2000 television version) and Napoléon in a biographical television film.
Clavier has played in notable duos with:

Jean Reno in les Visiteurs (the Visitors), L’Opération Corned-Beef and L’Enquête corse (The Corsican investigation).
Gérard Depardieu in Astérix et Obélix (Asterix and Obelix) and Les anges gardiens.
He also runs a production company, Ouille Production.
He was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite on 13 June 1998,  and promoted Officier (Officer) in 2005. He was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d’honneur in 2008.

He is a friend of former French président Nicolas Sarkozy, and recently emigrated to England as a result of Francois Hollande’s punitive tax policy, mirrored in his Astérix co-star Gérard Depardieu’s self-imposed exile to Belgium.

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Michel Ancel (born March 29, 1972) is a French video game designer for Ubisoft. He is best known for creating the Rayman franchise, for which he was the lead designer for the first two games, and the recent Rayman Origins. He is also known for the cult favourite Beyond Good & Evil and for the video game adaptation of Peter Jackson’s King Kong. He is currently working on a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil with a small team of developers, using development tools specially designed to make game development more accessible to a greater audience.

On April 5, 2006, Ubisoft announced Ancel was leading the development of the fourth game in the Rayman series, Rayman Raving Rabbids, for Wii. The game began production in early 2005 and was released on November 15, 2006 for the launch of the Wii. However, Ancel was notably absent from the project after its E3 announcement, and he has made no public appearances regarding the game after the development team switched focus from a free-roaming platformer to the final mini games format shortly after E3. In the final game Ancel was only credited with storyboarding and character design, while design credits were shared between multiple other people.

In an interview with Nintendo Power, Ancel confirmed that he is working on a new project that means a lot to him. He also talks about Jade from Beyond Good & Evil and says “I really hope that Jade will continue to keep her values and her personality”.  Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed that Michel Ancel is currently working on several unannounced projects, as of March 2008.
In an interview with French-based video game magazine JeuxVidéo, Ancel stated that a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil had been in pre-production by a small team for about a year, but they were awaiting Ubisoft’s approval before moving into full production.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 was officially announced at Ubidays 2008 event on May 28, 2008.

On December 18, 2008, at the VGL event in Paris, Ancel stated that the game has been under development for a year and a half and that the development team has received total freedom from Ubisoft, giving them the opportunity to make the game how they want.
In 2010, Ubisoft announced Rayman Origins, first an episodic video game designed by Michel Ancel and developed by a small team of five people, but then it was announced that it transformed into a full game. The title uses the UBIart Framework developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and Ancel. UBIart is a developer platform that allows artists and animators to easily create content and use it in an interactive environment.  The engine is optimized for HD resolutions and is capable of running games at 60 frames per second in 1920×1080 resolution. UBIart tools will be released as open-source software in 2011.
Speaking at Montpellier in Game conference in June 2010, Ancel revealed that he’s developing similar tools to create Beyond Good & Evil 2 with a very small team to preserve its “artistic spirit”.  Ancel is experimenting with different development techniques and tools. He claims these tools are getting similar to those used by Weta Digital.

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• Official website
• WWE Alumni profile

Maryse Ouellet (born January 21, 1983) is a French Canadian glamour model, professional wrestler, and business woman, better known simply as Maryse. She is best known for her time with WWE between 2006 and 2011.

After spending years modelling, including winning Miss Hawaiian Tropic Canada in 2003, Maryse was hired by WWE in 2006, after she participated in the WWE Diva Search competition. Despite her elimination, she was sent to WWE’s developmental facility, Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in Louisville, Kentucky. She signed a deal with WWE in August 2006 and was assigned to OVW for wrestling training, where she made her ring debut in December 2006. She appeared in vignettes on WWE television. During this time, she continued working at OVW, but was later transferred to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), another WWE developmental facility, to further her training.

In March 2008, Maryse appeared on SmackDown, competing in a swim suit competition. Three months later she made her television in-ring debut. In December 2008, Maryse captured her first title with the company, the WWE Divas Championship, and held it for seven months, the longest reign in the championship’s history.

In April 2009 she was drafted to the Raw brand, during the 2009 WWE Draft. She won the Divas Championship for the second time in February 2010, making her the first wrestler to have held the championship on more than one occasion. In March 2011, she became the co-host of NXT. Maryse was released from WWE in October 2011.
In late 2011, she announced plans for a clothing and jewelery line called House of Maryse.

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www.belyzel-najoua.com (in French)

Najoua Belyzel (born Najoua Mazouri 15 December 1981 in Nancy, France) is a French pop rock/electronic singer of Moroccan-Egyptian descent.

In 2005, Najoua released her first single, titled “Gabriel”, an electric-pop dance track. The song became a huge hit in France, and peaked at number three on the Top 40 charts in France. It dealt with both homosexuality or even bisexuality and the impossible and pure love for an angel.

The video was shot in an abbey. On 29 May 2006, she released her debut album titled Entre deux mondes, which debuted at #7 on the French charts and at #1 on the iTunes France music store. In late 2006 and early 2007, she embarked on a tour with other artists across France and Francophone Europe to promote her album. Two other singles were released, “Je Ferme les Yeux” in June 2006, which was also an electro-pop title but it met with less success than “Gabriel”. The theme was a prayer to God to make this world better. The third single was “Comme Toi” a song about duality and schizophrenia. The video clip featured two Najoua, a warrior-like blond and a trapped brunette. The album is mainly electro-pop with some ballads. It deals with many different themes such as love, friendship (Stella), war, pedophilia (Docteur Gel) her distress and disappointment when Najoua came to Paris (Bons Baisers de Paris)

Najoua Belyzel released a new single, “Quand revient l’été”, on 10 September 2007.
She has been compared  to Mylène Farmer, mainly because the video clip for “Gabriel” was shot in the same abbey as one of Mylene’s clip “Je te rends ton amour”) and because they write about similar themes, but Najoua says she never wanted to copy Mylene and that they both have their distinctive universes.

During the Summer 2008 she released on the Iinternet a cover song of Marie Laforêt “Viens, Viens”, but it was not meant to be a single. Najoua returned with the new single “La Bienvenue”. Some excerpts of the video clip were shown to the fans in December and the final clip was shown on TV in February. The single became available on legal donwloading platforms on 13 February. The song is about a girl who feels rejected in this world and who does not see the good in her. The video features a mannequin becoming alive (played by Najoua) but who is then disappointed by the cruelty of the world and finally decides to return to her previous state.
Najoua’s new album Au Feminin was released on 23 November 2009, three years after the first one. It includes a duet with Marc Lavoine called “Viola” as well as songs called Hey Hey Hey, Ma Sainte-Nitouche, La Trève. Her song “Née de l’amour et de la haine” is also included.

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• Official website
• Sébastien Tellier on Myspace

Sébastien Tellier ( born November 30, 1974) is a French singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is currently signed to Record Makers, a French independent record label. He sings in English, French and Italian.

Tellier followed L’incroyable Vérité with his second studio album Politics (2005). A particularly popular song from Politics was “La Ritournelle”, a string-led tune, which featured Nigerian drummer, Tony Allen of Fela Kuti fame. “La Ritournelle” was remixed by various artists, notably in Britain by Metronomy.

His third studio album Sexuality was produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. Like his previous album Politics, Tellier used a single term as title and theme of the album. Tellier’s label Record Makers collaborated with retailer American Apparel for an exclusive three month pre-release of the album, whilst American Apparel sold limited edition versions of the Sexuality CD, LP and “Divine” 7″ and 12″ single through their North American stores and website.

On 7 March 2008, it was announced by Bruno Berberes, head of EBU delegation in France, that Tellier would represent France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. It was held in Belgrade on 24 May 2008. Tellier sang “Divine”. This was the first time in the history of the contest that the nominated French entry was to be performed largely in English, which caused controversy. leading to Tellier pledging to increase the amount of French in the song prior to the competition itself. In total, the entry received 47 points.

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Gaspard Ulliel at the Internet Movie Database

Gaspard Ulliel (born 25 November 1984) is a French film actor and model. He began appearing in made-for-television films during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then began to be known as a film actor in France, as well as starring in the title role in the thriller Hannibal Rising.

Ulliel was born in Boulogne-Billancourt (a suburb of Paris) to a runway show producer mother and a stylist father.[1] He has a scar on his left cheek as a result of an attack from a doberman when he attempted to ride the dog like a horse at the age of six. He says it increases his emotional acting abilities because it looks like a dimple.[2] Ulliel attended the University of Saint-Denis, where he studied cinema. He began acting while he was still at school, appearing in Une Femme En Blanc, a film for French television. He also performed at the Cours Florent, where he was discovered by Les égarés director André Téchiné.

In 2007, he appeared on the cover of the January issue of French Vogue with Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes.
Ulliel is the current face of Longchamp, a French leather and luxury goods company, along with Kate Moss.
Ulliel was chosen as the face of Chanel for its new men’s fragrance, Bleu de Chanel. The film for the campaign was directed by Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese and debuted in August 2010.

Ulliel was nominated for a César Award on the category Most Promising Actor in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, he won that award for his role in A Very Long Engagement, which co-starred Audrey Tautou.

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Laura Smet at the Internet Movie Database

Laura Smet (born 15 November 1983, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) is a French actress. She is the daughter of rock musician Johnny Hallyday and actress Nathalie Baye. In 1986 Jean-Jacques Goldman wrote the song “Laura”, which Johnny Hallyday later recorded.

In 2002 she began her acting career when Xavier Giannoli, on the recommendation of Olivier Assayas, cast her in the role of Charlotte, a young cancer patient in Les corps impatients, and for which she received a nomination for the César Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2003 she starred in Claude Chabrol’s film adaptation of the Ruth Rendell novel, The Bridesmaid (La Demoiselle d’Honneur).

In 2004, Smet won the Prix Romy Schneider. Romy Schneider is an actress she greatly admires. In 2006 she played in Le Passager de l’été, a film written and directed by Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, the daughter of Jean Gabin.

In 2007 she played Caroline in L’Heure zéro, Pascal Thomas’s film adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel.

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• Official website
• Biography Baptiste Giabiconi’s profile on NY mag

Baptiste Giabiconi (born 9 November 1989) is a French male model and singer from Marignane, France. He is currently the male face of Chanel, Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld. He has been described as the world’s highest paid male model.

In 2008, Giabiconi signed with DNA Model Management New York.

In the same year Karl Lagerfeld took Giabiconi as the male face of Chanel, closing their haute couture shows in 2009 with Freja Beha Erichsen and Lara Stone and in 2010 with Abbey Lee and Iris Strubegger.

He has also appeared in editorials for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Numero Homme, V Man, Marie Claire, Purple, Giorgio Armani and L’Officiel Hommes.

In spring 2010, he was photographed for the Roberto Cavalli campaign, alongside Kate Moss and became the face of Coca Cola Light, alongside Coco Rocha.

He was placed at No. 1 on models.com listing of the Top 50 international male models for roughly two years before being replaced by Sean O’Pry.  As of September 2011, he was placed on the more prominent “Icons” list of male models where he shares the No. 10 ranking with top male model, Werner Schreyer. He also has a reported net worth of USD $100 million dollars (2011).

He released his debut single “Showtime” in 2010. In 2012, he announced an agreement with My Major Company fan-funded label to produce his debut album entitled Oxygen. The album was released in September 2012 and entered the SNEP French Albums Chart straight in at number 1. The lead single from the album was “One Night In Paradise”, a pre-release in promotion of the album. The follow-up single from the album is called “Speed of Light (L’amour & les étoiles)” and was released on September 2, 2012.

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• Emma de Caunes at the Internet Movie Database
• Emma de Caunes at AllRovi

Emma de Caunes (born 9 September 1976) is a French film actress. She is best known for playing the role of Sabine in Mr. Bean’s Holiday.

De Caunes was born in Paris, the daughter of actor/director Antoine de Caunes and director/graphic designer Gaëlle Royer. She was married to singer Sinclair (real name Mathieu Blanc-Francard) who is the father of her daughter Nina (born in Paris, October 2002). She married comic book artist Jamie Hewlett in September 2011.
De Caunes’s career began at the age of ten courtesy of a role granted by Michèle Reiser, her godmother. The character she played had a boy friend named “Arvin” . She obtained her Baccalaureate in film in 1995.

De Caunes appeared in various advertisements before landing her first major film role in Sylvie Verheyde’s Un Frère. After her performance in the 1997 film, de Caunes won Most Promising Actress at the 1998 César awards and Best Actress at the 1997 Paris Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Actress in the Acteurs à l’Écran awards. She won the 2002 Prix Romy Schneider, an award given annually to a promising young actress.

She had a main role in the comedy film Mr. Bean’s Holiday, in which she played the role of an actress in Willem Dafoe’s character’s independent film.

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Pierre Boulanger at the Internet Movie Database

Pierre Boulanger (born 8 August 1987) is a French actor. He is known for 2003′s film Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran, where he played a young Jewish boy, Moises “Momo” Schmidt. And also 2008′s film Nos 18 ans where he played Richard.

The young actor was then reported to be concentrating on his studies, thus he was not able to do movies right after Monsieur Ibrahim. After two years, he did some TV appearances and minor roles in movies. He is best known for the production of his first major English film in 2011,Monte Carlo with Selena Gomez.

Filmography

• The Unlikely Girl (2011) (Post-Production) as Luc
• Monte Carlo (2011) as Theo
• Camarades (2007)
• Camping paradis (2006) as David
• Commissaire Cordier (2006) as Maxime
• Grain de sel (2006) as Maxime
• Poids plume (2005)
• Sauveur Giordano (2005) as Maxime Levain
• L’envers du décor (2005) as Maxime Levain

• Le Proc (2005) as Damien Flamand
• Danger Public (2005) as Damien Flamand
• Les visages d’Alice (2005) as Pierre
• Le Grand vent (2004) as Antoine
• Dans la tête du tueur (2004) as Kevin
• Louis Page (2004) as François
• Un vieil ami (2004) as François
• Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran as Momo (2003) – featuring Omar Sharif
• Nos 18 ans’

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• Official website
• Émilie Simon’s YouTube Channel

Émilie Simon (born 1978 in Montpellier, France) is a French singer and composer of electronic music,

In May 2003, she released her debut album Émilie Simon. The electronic album was critically acclaimed and went on to become a commercial success. To promote her album, she did numerous live performances and TV appearances all over France. In 2004, she was rewarded with a Victoire de la musique in the ‘Electronic Album’ category for the album.

Two music videos were made to promote Émilie Simon for the songs “Désert” and “Flowers”. The English version of “Désert” had an identical music video to the French version. Émilie Simon was also re-released in certain parts of the world with additional tracks. Despite having been released for over three years, the album was still charting in the French mid-price album charts in late January 2007.

More recently, Émilie Simon has begun performing and releasing CDs in the United States. Her first U.S. release, The Flower Book, came out November 2006. The release was followed by a brief tour to New York and Los Angeles. In April 2007 Émilie released her second recording in the United States, The March of the Empress, and a third, The Big Machine, in 2011.

In 2006, Émilie Simon released her third album, Végétal, in which she uses the sounds of plants, as hinted by the name. The lyrics play with words, always relating to flora. The album also contains more elements of rock music. This comes forward in some of the more lively tracks, such as “Fleur De Saison”, where she plays an electric guitar. The sound remains nonetheless that of electronic music while her voice maintains its candor, softness, and beauty.

A music video has been aired for the first single “Fleur de saison”, the second one called “Dame de Lotus” has also been already aired. The album utilizes Opendisc technology which enables access to special content such as songs and music videos on her official website. Végétal is her only album to have more than one cover image. Currently, three separate covers exist for the album.

In late 2006, she released The Flower Book in the USA (April 2007 in Canada), a compilation album of her first three records, with some added material from her short international tour which included stops in New York and Los Angeles. She also used MySpace to convey messages to fans. Furthermore, “Désert” was released in vinyl in the US. The track “Rose hybride de thé”, originally from Végétal, is officially the first single release intended for US audiences.

On 5 March 2007, Émilie Simon released her first live album, titled À l’Olympia. The set exists as a sole CD or DVD, and contains live footage from a concert recorded on 19 September 2006. Songs from all of three of her albums are present in the recording.

As a follow-up to Simon’s debut U.S. release, The Flower Book, La Marche de l’empereur was released on 3 April 2007.

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Eva Gaëlle Green (born 5 July 1980) is a French actress and model. Green performed in theatre before making her film debut in 2003 in Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film, The Dreamers. Green quickly achieved greater fame by appearing in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (2005).

In 2006, she garnered international attention after landing the role of Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006).

Green’s performance was very well received by critics, and many considered her to be one of the best Bond girls of all time. [3][4] That same year, Green was awarded the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Since 2006, Green has starred in many independent films, including Womb, Perfect Sense, and Cracks, a film directed by Ridley Scott’s daughter, Jordan Scott. However, she has maintained a high-profile by appearing in The Golden Compass, the television series Camelot, and, most recently, by playing Angelique Bouchard in Tim Burton’s big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows.

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• Sinik 609
• Sinik – AOL Music

Thomas Idir a.k.a. Sinik (born June 26, 1980) is a French-language rap artist. His father is Algerian while his mother is French.
His meeting with Diam’s at 14 was the turning point of his career.

They consider themselves as brother and sister.
In 2001, he founded his label Six o Nine.

Le Toit du Monde, released in 2007, contains a song called Je Réalise which features British songwriter, James Blunt. The single is sung in two languages, English and French (French with Sinik and English with James Blunt).

Canadian UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre used Sinik’s L’Homme a Abattre as ring entrance music in his bout with BJ Penn at UFC 94.

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• Emmanuelle Seigner at the Internet Movie Database
• Emmanuelle Seigner at the Fashion Model Directory

Emmanuelle Seigner (born 22 June 1966) is a French actress, former fashion model, and singer, also known as the wife of Academy Award winning Polish director Roman Polanski, and for her roles in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), and Frantic (1988). She has been nominated for two César Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Place Vendôme (1998) and La Vie En Rose (2007).

Seigner was born in Paris, France to a photographer father and a journalist mother.  She is the granddaughter of the respected actor Louis Seigner (1903–1991) and sister of the actress Mathilde Seigner. She was educated at a Catholic convent school, and began modelling at the age of fourteen. Capitalizing on her appearance she achieved international status as a professional model.

She married the Polish film director Roman Polanski on 30 August 1989. They have two children: daughter Morgane and son Elvis. He directed her in Frantic (1988), opposite Harrison Ford, and later in Bitter Moon (1992), as well as The Ninth Gate (1999), co-starring Johnny Depp. In 2010, Seigner was featured in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing, which went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Seigner appears as the main character in the music video “Hands Around My Throat” by Death in Vegas. In 2006, she became lead singer of the pop rock band Ultra Orange, and the group’s name was changed to Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle. Seigner and Polanski live with their two children in Paris. She was an ambassadress of the Polish brand Dr Irena Eris.

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