About the Director
Radu Mihaileanu is a French director and scriptwriter born in Bucarest (Romania) on April 23, 1958. Son of a Jewish journalist, he flees from Romania in 1980 during Ceausescu's dictatorship, to find refuge in Israel, next in France where he studies cinema at IDHEC. For the 1980's, he is director assistant, notably for Marco Ferreri. In 1993, he makes his first film as a director, Betrayal, of which he co-writes the script. This first movie is well received by the criticism and wins lot of prizes around the world. With his second movie, Train of life, Radu Mihaileanu has an international success, especially thanks to two awards won at the Venice Film Festival in 1998. In 2005, with Live and Become, he obtains the Cesar of the best screenplay and several awards at the Berlinale.

SYNOPSIS
During the Brezhnev era, Andrei Filipov was the greatest conductor in the Soviet Union and he directed the famous Bolshoi Orchestra. But after refusing to abandon his Jewish musicians, including his best friend Sacha, he was fired at the height of his glory. Thirty years later, he is still working at the Bolshoi, but... as a cleaner. One evening, when Andrei has stayed late to the polish the director's desk, he comes across a fax addressed to the Bolshoi management: it is an invitation from the Thtre du Chtelet in Paris for the orchestra to come and perform there. Suddenly, Andrei has a crazy idea: why not bring together his old musician friends, who now get by doing menial work, and take them to Paris, passing them off as the Bolshoi Orchestra? It is the long-awaited occasion for them to at last get their revenge.