Roland Petit

The celebrated French choreographer Roland Petit had always had his eye on a film presentation of his ballet "Chaplin Dances", which premiered in 1991 and has been touring the world since, and he assigned this project to his trusted friend, Masayuki Suo, pioneer of the current revival of Japanese cinema. Drawing upon a wealth of worldwide ballet talent, Petit's ballet and Chaplin's films, Suo reinvented the work and has given it a new lease of life. The resulting piece is not simply a filmed record of the ballet but a union of the two media that reflects the meeting of the great talents of Chaplin, Petit and Suo

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Zizi Jeanmaire sizzle in this ballet set to the music and story of Carmen.

About the soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet, the famous ballerina Irina Alexandrovna Kolpakova. The ballerina is shown in completely different situations — she conducts rehearsals, teaches, takes exams at the conservatory, learns English, rehearses numbers from the ballet 'Giselle,' and feels nervous before the start of a performance.

Lively scenes of Paris, all narrated by Maurice Chevalier, link together four dramatic ballet choreographies by Roland Petit: La Croqueuse de diamants (The Gold Digger), Cyrano de Bergerac, Deuil en 24 heures (A Merry Mourning), and Carmen.

A small-town shoemaker with a knack for spinning yarns, Hans encounters happiness and heartbreak on his road to becoming a full-fledged writer.