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Binoche hopes 'Chocolat' will sweeten the Oscars
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JULIETTE BINOCHE hopes the same sweet magic that turned a French town upside down in the comic fable ''Chocolat'' will help the delightful film set in rural France to win a number of Academy Award nominations next week.
The French actress, who won the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear award for best actress in ``The English Patient'' in 1997, drew warm applause at the Berlinale on Saturday.
As a single mother arriving in a rigid French town in 1959, Binoche opens a chocolate shop and offers tasty treats that rekindle passion in dead marriages and gradually melt the town's frostiness toward her.
``Chocolate is a wonderful symbol,'' she told a news conference after the film's international premiere at the Berlinale on Saturday.
``Chocolate gives you pleasure. When you eat it you go 'mmmm'. It brings people together. It was believed to be an aphrodisiac. I love all kinds of it -- white, black and milky.''
The English-language film is considered an Oscar candidate for best film, best actress and also best supporting actress.
Although the film, which cost US$25 million, has had only a modest box office run in the United States since its release late last year, it has won widespread acclaim from critics and is expected to do well outside the US.
(SD-Agencies)
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