Film distributors are hoping British audiences will embrace an elfin-like woman who has already won the heart of a French President and millions of cinemagoers across the Channel.

The movie hit Amelie opens here today, backed by a reported £600,000 publicity and advertising budget, unprecedented for a foreign language film. Momentum, the company releasing the picture in this country, believes it has the ability to become the biggest French film ever in the UK.

The big spend has been encouraged by the international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The martial arts movie not only won Oscar nominations but huge audiences for a sub-titled film, becoming the highest-grossing foreign language movie in the UK.

Amelie will have a 78-print launch after breaking records in its homeland, where it has recorded over seven million admissions. As well as playing in specialised cinemas like Newcastle Tyneside Cinema, the film is being booked into multiplexes too.

The story follows a young Parisian woman (played by Audrey Tatou) who sets out to improve the lives of everyone around her, for no reason other than to spread a little happiness.

You'd think that this success would make director Jean-Pierre Jeunet a happy man but, after the formal greeting, he has a few harsh words (in English and unrepeatable here) to say about the British poster for Amelie. Roughly translated, his remarks indicate that he is not enamoured of it.

Perhaps he was simply going stir crazy at the end of a long day spent imprisoned in a hotel room doing interviews before the UK premiere of Amelie at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

He can certainly afford to smile in the light of the success of Amelie. Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children, both co-directed with Marc Caro, had established his credentials but his foray to Hollywood to direct Alien Resurrection, the fourth in the space horror movies starring Sigourney Weaver, was not a conspicuous success.

He's taken in the lessons of working in America. "I learnt to be tough and strong because you have to be strong in Hollywood and have nerves like cable," he says.

It's clear that he fought with the studio bosses backing Alien Resurrection, unlike in France where he has complete freedom. "I have nothing to explain, nothing to justify. I am the king," he says. "It's a little bit weird, even with a more expensive movie I can do everything I want."

You can understand his interest in the merits of the poster when he talks of his vision. "I am interested in everything in the cinema - writing, sets, colour, lights, everything I have to make."

He hasn't shut the door completely on returning to the States. "Why not?" he asks, adding: "But I don't want to do a stupid action movie." So he's said no to the action and science fiction movies that were offered in the wake of the Alien film.

"I have to fall in love with the subject. You are going to spend two, three years maybe, of your life with the subject because it takes so long to make a movie. I work 16 hours a day for three years."

Yet Amelie could have been so different. He wrote the script with British actress Emily Watson in mind. He'd seen her in Breaking The Waves, for which she was Oscar-nominated, and thought about her while creating the character of Amelie. "At the end, when we are finished, I thought, 'maybe I can ask her'.

"I saw in a newspaper that she wanted to work with me. We did some tests in French and English, and she was better in English so I modified the script. But after a while she said, 'sorry, I am sorry to disappoint you but I don't want to be away from home for a long time'. I was disappointed as I love this actress. So I did the casting in France." Not that Watson was entirely forgotten as her name is recalled in the title of the film.

His desire to make "a very small personal film" after the big budget international feel of Alien Resurrection has been quashed with Amelie assuming blockbuster status in his native France. He expected perhaps one and a half million people to see it, unable to understand why the film has been such a big success.

President Jacques Chirac requested a private screening when he heard that the French people had taken Amelie to their heart. This was sweet revenge on the organisers of the Cannes Film Festival who didn't invite the film in the official competition.

Jeunet deliberately avoided being rushed into making his next film although he's riding high. "Today I can do everything I want, but I have to take my time. I can make the first script on my table but I have to wait for the right subject."

* Amelie (15) opens in cinemas today.

Published: 05/10/2001