For anyone who enjoyed Cedric Klapsich's light-hearted 'L'auberge Espagnol', you might be interested to know that the director has made a sequel called 'Les Poupees Russes' (Russian Dolls).

I attended a gala preview screening a couple of weeks ago. The film was enjoyable, like the first, quite subtle, nothing to get over excited about but a well made film with some interesting themes.

The film is partly about love and how so often we just can't find it, not for want of trying either. The main character in the film likened finding the right woman to Russian Dolls, how you have to just keep opening them up until you get to the one in the middle, to the one that you know is the last one, the right one, the perfect one and the one you want to cherish forever.

Sometimes you just have to go through that process, with the hope that the right one is out there somewhere (or in there somewhere if we're using the russian dolls analogy again!).

So, does he get his girl or not? You'll have to watch it to find out!

The climax of the evening was an onstage interview with the director, followed by an audience Question and Answer session. I found Cedric Klapsich to be a very sensible man, his responses were ordered, controlled and surprisingly succinct, he talked more of the ideas and themes that he'd put across in the films. Like how small Europe has become, how easy it is for us to meet other Europeans, lives that fall short of our own expectations, how the pieces of the puzzle don't always fit, how some things in life (like findig true love) can bring about the most startling changes in a person (this is illustrated by the biggest character development of the unlikeliest lad, an english 'lout' who falls in love with a Russian Ballerina, 'grows up' and becomes the first from the group to marry etc etc).