Paris, je t'aime

Paris, je t'aime (Paris, I love you) is a 2006 anthology film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements. The 22 directors include Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gérard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Yolande Moreau, and Gus Van Sant.

Arrondissements
Initially, 20 short films representing the 20 arrondissements of Paris were planned, but two of them (the 15th arrondissement, directed by Christoffer Boe, and the 11th arrondissement, by Raphaël Nadjari) were not included in the final film because they could not be properly integrated into it. Each arrondissement is followed by a few images of Paris; these transition sequences were written by Emmanuel Benbihy and directed by Benbihy with Frédéric Auburtin. Including Benbihy, there were 22 directors involved in the finished film.

Production
Julio Medem was attached to the project for a long time. He was supposed to direct one of the segments, but this finally fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of Caótica Ana (2007).

Paris, je t'aime is the first feature film to be fully scanned in 6K and mastered in 4K in Europe (as opposed to the normal 2K). Encoding the image took about 24 hours per reel (at Laboratoires Éclair).

Both Emmanuel Benbihy and Gilles Caussade served as executive producers on the project. As the film is a collection of shorter segments, there were also producers attached to each episode of the project.

Influence
Following the success of Paris, je t'aime, a similarly structured film, New York, I Love You, focusing on life in that city, premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in a limited number of theatres in 2009.

The Cities of Love website states that there are several more films in the series to be released. They include Rio, Eu Te Amo, Shanghai, 我爱你 and Jerusalem, I Love You. All the films will follow the same style with no fewer than 10 short films using their respective city as the main unifying character.

Release
The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May, opening the Un Certain Regard selection. It had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September and its US premiere in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 9 April 2007. First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the United States on 4 May 2007.

Reception
Paris, je t'aime received generally positive reviews, currently holding an 87% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "Paris je t'aime is uneven, but there are more than enough delightful moments in this omnibus tribute to the City of Lights to tip the scale in its favor." Metacritic gives the film a 66/100 rating, indicating "generally favorable reviews".