The Hedgehog

Inspired by Muriel Barbery’s beloved New York Times bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, comes the touching coming-of-age story THE HEDGEHOG.

THE HEDGEHOG was the winner of the Seattle International Film Festival Space Needle Award for Best Picture as well as the FilmFest DC and Col-Coa Film Festival Audience Winner. Mona Achache’s feature film debut, THE HEDGEHOG also garnered a Best of Fest mention at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Starring Josiane Balasko, Togo Igawa, Anne Brochet and newcomer Garance Le Guillermic, THE HEDGEHOG is the touching coming-of-age story of Paloma, a gifted and expressive young girl bent on finding a way out of her cold bourgeois life. To accomplish this goal and achieve maximum dramatic effect, she sees no other solution but to end it all on her upcoming twelfth birthday. Using her father’s old camcorder to chronicle the hypocrisy she sees in adults, Paloma begins to learn about life from her building’s dour, anti-social concierge, Renée Michel (Balasko, French Twist). The often gruff matron keeps a secret: an extensive library, a true passion for elegance, and a habit of reading Tolstoy to her cat Leo.

The arrival in the building of a mysterious man, Mr. Ozu (Igawa, Memoirs Of A Geisha, The Last Samurai), transforms their world: Renée opens up to a renewed life, Paloma begins to understand that there are allies to be found beneath the prickliest of exteriors, and her own coming of age becomes a much less pessimistic prospect.

Winner - Space Needle Award, 2010 Seattle International Film Festival Winner - Audience Award, 2010 COL-COA Film Festival, Los Angeles Winner - FilmFest DC 2011 Best Of Fest - 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival