Cinema, the Canine Stars of the Big Screen | M6 | 66 minutes

The peace and quiet of the foothills of the Jura mountains is being disturbed by the shooting of a film in which the principal role is played by a four-legged actor. Garfield, a pedigree Pyrenean Mountain Dog, even has his own makeup artist because he is playing the role of Belle in the new film, Belle et Sébastien, the adventure goes on” by Christian Duguay. Audiences just love canine stars like him. From Lassie to A Hundred and One Dalmatians, longhaired or short, dogs strut the red carpet: dogs like Uggie, from The Artist. They even have their own award at Cannes: the Palm Dog. Whereas a French film is, on average, seen by 230,000 cinema goers, those with a dog as the star smash box-office records: in 2013 Boule et Bill sold 2 million tickets and the first edition of Belle et Sébastien nearly 3 million. So how does a dog become bankable? How do you get animals to play emotions? Does a major screen star slumber within your faithful four-legged friend? The most famous animal-performer trainer in France, Patrick Pittavino, welcomes us to his kennels to reveal his techniques for getting man’s best friend to act. Actor, Jean-Hughes Anglade, who was attacked by a Rottweiler a few years ago, is going to share the limelight in his next film with several dogs. During training and shooting, he tells us how these new hairy-coated stars are bursting onto the set.”