"To me, Paris is like a map of the heart," says the actress, on the phone from her home there the other evening. "You know, it's kind of round, like a heart, and the Seine is like the big artery. . . .

"At the same time, it's not an easy city to live in, because it's messy, there's a lot of noise, there aren't big green spaces like in London. It's very contained and yet, aesthetically, some parts are very beautiful."

Paris, which opened Friday at the Ritz Five, hails from Cedric Klapisch, best known for L'auberge espagnole and its followup, Russian Dolls. Paris is one of those films in which folks from divergent walks of life - a history professor, a garbage collector, a student, a fruit vendor, a bakery shop owner, a dancer, and (Binoche's character) a social worker - cross paths. Although it marks the first time Klapisch has directed the Oscar-winner (supporting actress, The English Patient), the two met on one of Binoche's earliest films. "Oh, it was at least 20 years ago, and he was the electrician," she recalls. (The film was The Night Is Young.) "We had a good friend in common and have become, over the years, good friends ourselves. So it seemed natural to do this."

In the film, Binoche's Elise works with clients who are homeless, with immigrants in need of work, housing, and documentation. When she discovers that her brother (Romain Duris) is seriously ill, she takes time off to be with him. French film stalwarts Fabrice Luchini and François Cluzet also star.

Binoche, 45, has made a number of films in Paris that have been directed by foreigners: Austrian Michael Haneke steered her through the profound puzzler Caché. Chinese director Hou Hsiao Hsien cast Binoche as the central figure in his Flight of the Red Balloon. Israeli Amos Gitai put Binoche front and center in Disengagement.

For the actress, who also appeared in a segment of the anthology picture Paris, Je T'aime, the lure of the French capital for directors from other countries, other cultures, is obvious:

"They all have Paris, and France, as a reference point for films," she explains. "The auteur films, independent films, artistic films, the New Wave, these are films that serious directors have studied and have drawn inspiration from. So Paris is like this cradle of cinema to them. . . . And I think it's a city of art, so it brings people together. . . .

"To me, it still has this deep connection, somehow."

"Boys Are Back" - in Australia. After the success of Shine - the 1998 Down Under drama about a piano prodigy (Geoffrey Rush) with a personality disorder - its director, Scott Hicks, was dispatched to Hollywood and went off on a busy run that kept him far afield for long stretches of time. There were three big features: Snow Falling on Cedars, adapted from the David Guterson bestseller; Hearts in Atlantis, from the Stephen King book, with Anthony Hopkins starring; and No Reservations, the Catherine Zeta-Jones restaurateur romancer.

Now, with The Boys Are Back, an effective weepie, opening Friday, about a father forced to juggle work and single-parenting duties after his wife dies, Hicks was able to return home. Quite literally.

"The incredible luxury with this film was being able to sleep in my own bed at night," says Hicks, on the phone from South Australia. "In fact, when we were shooting in the house locations, I have a beach house which is much closer to that location than to the city, so I was in my holiday house while I was working, which is kind of cool. . . . One of the scenes in the film is shot from the balcony of my beach house, so it really got close to home."

The Boys Are Back, adapted from the memoir of a popular Aussie sports journalist, boasts a formidable performance from Clive Owen. The film is a small and emotional affair, but the director opens things up by shooting some of the world's most amazing landscapes: blond hills and lavender fields, teeming with kangaroos and wild birds, leading to a rocky coastline of breathtaking beaches and coves.

"What was wonderful to me was being able to take these elements in a story that I really loved and set them in a landscape that I not only understand but that I also really love," says Hicks, who runs his own vineyard, Yacca Paddock (check out www.yaccapaddock.com), in the Adelaide Hills.

"This is where I come back to when I'm not working. It's my source, and where I come to recharge, so it was quite inspirational to be able to use the landscape in this creative way.

"Emotionally, [the film] is a little chamber piece - it's very much focused on the core set of relationships between the father and his sons . . . . But what I felt I was able to do was provide a sense of scale and some sort of grandeur, given how powerful the landscapes are."

Read his blog, "On Movies Online," at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ onmovies.