The recently released "Since Otar Left" will be receiving a lot of attention, as will its Italian surnamed director, Julie Bertuccelli, who seems to take no pride in her Italian blood, and we therefore must stifle an inclination to take pride in her achievements.

Just for the Record: Julie Bertuccelli, who lives in Paris, is the daughter of director Jean-Louis Bertucelli, who's mother married an Italian, as Julie refers to her paternal grandfather, in a rather offhand manner.

Julie's family was her two grandmothers, and her mother. Her father, Jean-Louis parents split when she was small. So it appears that Julie grew up without her father, and neither of her grandfathers.

Furthermore, Julie bemoans, "Both her grandmothers had more love for their sons than for their daughters. This apparantly left Julie a little bitter.

Below is Julie's father's, Jean-Louis Bertucelli Filmography, who was best known for
"Ramparts of Clay" among the films he made from 1970-1991.

Further down is The Los Angeles Times Review of "Otar", set in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
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JEAN-LOUIS BERTUCCELLI: Filmography
      1991 Aujourd'hui Peut-Etre... Director
1984 Stress Director
1983 Lucie Sur Seine Director
1977 L'Imprecateur Director / Screenwriter
1976 Le Désert des Tartares Screenwriter
1975 Docteur Françoise Gailland Director / Screenwriter
1974 On s'Est Trompe d'Histoire d'Amour Director / Screenwriter
1972 Paulina 1880 Director / Screenwriter
1970 Remparts d'Argile Director
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NY TIMES REVIEW SUMMARY

"Ramparts of Clay" ( Remparts d'Argile)
Starring Leila Schenna, Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Directed by Jean-Louis Bertucelli.

Ramparts of Clay stars Leila Schenna as a Tunisian woman torn between traditionalism and modernism. The citizens in her village have long considered themselves beholden to the absentee owners of the salt mines which serve as the community's chief source of income. When the owners refuse to raise salaries, the mine workers defy tradition by going on strike. While the woman is sympathetic with the workers' plight, she is also hesitant about standing up to her so-called benefactors. Filmed in semi-documentary fashion in the Algerian village of Tehouda, Ramparts of Clay was adapted from a book by Jean Duvignaud. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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'OTAR'  CELEBRATES WOMEN AT THE HEART OF FAMILIES

Julie Bertuccelli drew on the stories of her mother and both of her grandmothers in writing and directing her tale of three generations.

By Nancy Ramsey
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times
May 15 2004

Julie Bertuccelli readily admits that her first feature film, "Since Otar Left … ," "is about me and my matriarchal family." Set in Tbilisi, Georgia, "Otar" deftly weaves a portrait of life in the struggling former Soviet republic with the tale of three generations of women living under one roof and longing for the absent son, Otar, who has immigrated to Paris with the hope of a better life.

Bertuccelli, 36, who has a warm and casual style... (and though she) lives in Paris, she set the film in Tbilisi and created the characters of Eka, Marina and Ada to protect "my real intention about these women," she said, speaking in a mock stage whisper in reference to the characters' similarity to herself, her mother and her grandmothers.

"And it's about how they use the lie to control and change their lives."

"The lie" is at the heart of "Since Otar Left … ." The plot begins simply enough: For Eka, the grandmother ...the sun all but rises and sets on the letters and phone calls she receives from Otar, a doctor now working odd construction jobs in Paris. Daughter Marina (Nino Khomassouridze) resents her mother's favoritism, and they bicker. Outside the home, Marina struggles to survive selling goods in the flea market, despite her university education. Her husband was killed in Afghanistan; the man she now keeps company with is good for sex, she says, but not for conversation at dinner.

Granddaughter Ada (Dinara Droukarova), in her early 20s, plays peacemaker between the two women and longs to leave Tbilisi. In the evenings she reads Proust to her grandmother, who prefers her command of the French language to Marina's. By day Ada tries to negotiate the new world of capitalism and tolerates a boyfriend who talks of a BMW filled with cash but takes her to the hills above the city for sex in an old Soviet Lada.

And, when word comes that Otar has been killed in an accident, Ada agrees to participate in the ruse her mother devises to keep the news from Eka. They compose and read to Eka letters that speak of Otar's new life in Paris, where he's meeting poets and painters in cafes and attending the opera, featuring, of course, "Boris Gudonov." It is a ruse that ultimately allows each of them, with varying degrees of success, to rise above a difficult social and familial reality.

"My family was my two grandmothers, my mother and me," said Bertuccelli. Her father is director Jean-Louis Bertuccelli ("Ramparts of Clay"); her parents split when she was small. "Both grandmothers had more love for their sons than for their daughters. But these women didn't give a man a right place. They put the man on a pedestal. Or, like in the film, Marina doesn't like the boyfriend; he's good for bed, not for speaking."

Eka, she added, is a combination of both grandmothers. "They were completely different. My mother's mother was quite aristocratic and beautiful, she was from the intelligentsia. She was like the queen of the family." Her father's mother, who had married an Italian and lived "the immigrant life in the South of France" was "very popular, very generous, and had a stocky physique, with a large, open face and expressive features,... a woman who has a lot of character, a lot of energy...

Eka...was a witness to a lot of changes. She doesn't let sadness beat her down. There's a lot of love in that family, in spite of what goes on between her and her daughter."...

"I was often making peace between my grandmother and my mother," she said. "At the beginning of the film, Ada has no room for her personality. My own mother is beautiful, she has a lot of energy, she always wants to do big projects. She used to put together art exhibits, great exhibitions, but always at the last minute. My grandmother and I would criticize her, like Eka and Ada do in the film.

I was born in 1968. She was a great mother, but much too open. At 14 I had nothing to rebel against. Like Ada, I had my adolescent crisis in my 20s. The story of the film is the story of Ada learning to be a woman and to be egotistical, but egotistical in a good way. She learns to say no" — to her grandmother, to her mother, to the dictates of life in post-Soviet Tbilisi — "through this lie."...

calendarlive.com: 'Otar' celebrates women at the heart of families
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/
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