Final preparations are underway before shooting begins on April 21 on the detective film Bellamy, the 54th feature by Claude Chabrol.

The director will work for the first time with Gérard Depardieu. After a few cast changes, the film is also set to star Clovis Cornillac (Asterix at the Olympic Games [trailer], The New Protocol [trailer]); Jacques Gamblin (Best Actor at the 2002 Berlinale for Safe Conduct [trailer]); Marie Bunel (A Girl Cut in Two [trailer], The Chorus [trailer]); and the singer Adrienne Pauly (who has already acted in several films, including The Colour of Lies).
Co-written by the director and Odile Barski (her sixth collaboration with Chabrol with whom she co-wrote Violette Nozière and A Comedy of Power [trailer]), Bellamy was pitched last November at the Franco-German Film Meetings.

The film is produced by Patrick Godeau for Alicéleo, who also produced Chabrol’s latest two features (A Comedy of Power and A Girl Cut in Two).

Bellamy’s nine-week shoot will kick off in Nimes, in southeast France.

TFM Distribution will release the film domestically in the second half of 2009 and international sales will be handled by TF1 International. Chabrol will thus feature for the first time in the line-up of the two TF1 subsidiaries.