French film master Betrtrand Blier to helm “Existe en blanc”

PanARMENIAN.Net - French film master Betrtrand Blier is set to direct “Existe en blanc,” an adaptation of his eponymous second novel, Variety reports.

The movie will be produced by Sylvie Pialat’s Les Films du Worso and Edouard Weil’s Rectangle Prods.

Blier has assembled a strong cast of French stars including actress/director Maiwenn (whose latest film “Mon Roi” unspooled yesterday in competition at Cannes), Benoit Poolevorde (who headlines Jaco Van Dormael’s Directors’ Fortnight entry “The Brand New Testament”), Anais Demoustier (who topline Valerie Donzelli’s Cannes competition player “Margerite and Julien”) as well as Gregory Gadebois (“The Last Hammer Blow”).

Maiwenn takes very few acting roles. She last starred in Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu’s “Love Is a Perfect Crime.”

Pialat described the movie as a dark-humored crime thriller in the veins of “Buffet Froid,” Blier’s iconic 1979 film with Gerard Depardieu, Jean Carmet and Bernard Blier.

Published in 1998, “Existe en blanc” is a decadent and subersive tale charting the life of Baudouin Treutte, a Belgian serial killer who has strange sexual obsessions. The book also showcases Blier’s brand of black humor.

In Cannes, Reclangle Prods. has Donzelli’s “Margerite and Julien” in competition and Gaspar Noe’s midnight screener “Love,” while Les Films du Worso has Guillaume Nicloux’ Cannes competition entry “Valley of Love” and Corneliu Porumboiu’s “Treasure” playing in Un Certain Regard.