20/09/2012 - Shooting is to start tomorrow for Olivier Dahan’s film with Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth as a princely couple. A Stone Angels production

Cameras will start rolling tomorrow, September 21, for the eclectic Olivier Dahan’s ninth feature film: Grace of Monaco. This project in English, that was first announced in Cannes, is to star Australian actress Nicole Kidman and English actor Tim Roth. The director behind international success La Vie en Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and, more recently, football comedy Les seigneurs [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (lit. "The lords" - due out in France next Wednesday) is now to direct a cast including Spanish actress Paz Vega, British actor Roger Ashton Griffiths, American actor Frank Langella (nominated for a 2009 Oscar for best actor), and Quebecois actor Yves Jacques.

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Written by Arash Amel, the screenplay is set in 1962. Six years after what was called the wedding of the century, Grace Kelly does her best to reconcile her past with her present, torn between her nostalgia for her life as a film star and her new role of mother to two children, monarch of a European principality, and the wife of Prince Rainier III. While she ponders Alfred Hitchcock’s offer to return to a career in Hollywood, she experiences deep personal crisis, at a time when Rainier’s attempts to modernise Monaco (then in trouble) are threatened by the French president Charles de Gaulle. The latter imposes French tax on Monaco and tries to annex the principality by force. This international crisis and the risk of an imminent French invasion will not only threaten the monarch's marriage, his family, and the future of his country, but also affect Princess Grace’s private life. The international film icon, an American far away from home, must make a difficult decision: to return to being a glorious film star, an artist loved and admired by the entire world, or to renounce this status forever to embrace her new identity.

Produced by Pierre-Ange Le Pogam for Stone Angels, Uday Chopra for YRF, and Arash Amel, Grace of Monaco is co-produced by U Films (Belgium), Lucky Red (Italy), and TF1 Films. Pre-acquired by Canal+, the film will continue to be in production until December 21 in Paris, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, in Monaco, and in Belgium with Eric Gautier as director of photography. Stone Angels is handling international sales, while Inferno is to distribute the film in France during the second half of 2013.

(Translated from French)