La Galette du roi

La Galette du roi is a French comedy film written and directed by Jean-Michel Ribes. Shot in 1985 and released the following year, the roughly ninety-minute picture takes its title from the traditional king cake shared in France around Epiphany and builds a satirical intrigue around that custom. The film brings together a large ensemble of well-known French screen performers of the period, including Jean Rochefort, Roger Hanin, Jacques Villeret, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Eddy Mitchell, Jess Hahn and Pauline Lafont. Carrying Ribes's theatre-rooted taste for irony and caricature into cinema, it stands as a character-driven example of mid-1980s French ensemble comedy.