07/08/2006

Shooting started today on La vie d’artiste (lit. “The Life of an Artist”), the debut feature by Marc Fitoussi, starring Sandrine Kiberlain, Denis Podalydès, Emilie Dequenne and Aure Atika and co-starring Valérie Benguigui, Magali Woch, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and Jean-Pierre Kalfon.

A graduate of the Conservatoire Européen d’Ecriture Audiovisuelle in Paris and of UCLA, where he studied cinema, Fitoussi, who has directed four shorts since 1999 and scripted several films, this time around has written an intriguing ensemble piece that centres on three characters whose paths cross.

Actress Alice (Kiberlain) is trying to make ends meet as a body double, but dreams of doing something else, intent on finding a job that matches her talents, while Cora (played by Belgian actress Dequenne), a young girl who moves from the country to Paris where she ends up working in a karaoke bar, hopes to embark on a singing career. The third character, Bertrand (Podalydès), is a French schoolteacher but wants to become a writer and is finishing his second novel.

Produced by Carole Scotta and Caroline Benjo for Haut et Court, who will also handle the film’s distribution in France, the €3.5m La vie d’artiste is being co-produced by France 2 Cinéma.

The film has received an advance on receipts from the CNC, backing from the Ile de France region (€393,000) and a pre-sales agreement from Canal + and cable channel TPS, as well as from the film’s co-producer.

The eight-week shoot will take place in and around Paris, with a view to release in the second half of 2007.

(Translated from French)