Catherine Deneuve
© AFP Kazuhiro Nogi

TOKYO (AFP) - "There are great filmmakers in Hong Kong and Korea but I think that European and especially French cinema is very different," she told a news conference.

"It's cinema that's all at once emotional, that speaks a lot and explains a lot, and that understands the quite universal things about love," she said, calling on Japanese distributors to show more French films.

Deneuve, 63, who is perhaps best known for playing a bored housewife who secretly enters a brothel in 1967's "Belle de Jour," was in Japan for a festival of French cinema starting Thursday.

The French actress has travelled to Japan several times over her career but has not come since 1997.

Asked how Japan has changed, Deneuve said, "I get the impression that people look at one another less on the street because everyone is very busy with their mobile phones."

A recent study said one third of young adults in Japan use their mobile telephones for more than three hours per day.

©AFP