Temple all set to Fake! it
British filmmaker Julien Temple has signed up to direct $15 million art heist film Fake! for Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME). Working off a script by Michael Kalesniko, based on the biography of art fake Elmyr de Hory, written by hoax biographer Clifford Irving, the film is set for a spring shoot in Spain, Croatia and Canada.
Orson Welles’ last film, F For Fake, dealt with the same subject. Temple said, “Fake! is a story of dramatic intrigue and excitement from the complex emotional triangle between the three main protagonists. There’s an element of To Catch a Thief about what they do.
“As becomes clear in his conversations with Welles, one of the most amazing illusions Elmyr maintained during all the years of his career as an art forger was that he was not a criminal and what he was doing was not a crime. He knew of course it was against the law but so was jaywalking or smoking a joint. What he did, unlike governments and politicians, didn’t harm anyone else.”
F&ME’s Mike Downey said, “Fake! is the true story of audacious con artistry and high stakes excess. When Elmyr teams up in Miami with Fernand le Gros, a fast-talking charmer and borderline psychotic, a master plan is hatched. It tracks Elmyr de Hory and his partners in crime from Paris to New York to Ibiza as this flamboyant Hungarian refugee dupes the art world into parting with hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Temple’s credits include The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, Vigo, Pandaemonium, Glastonbury, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten [+see also:
trailer
film profile], The Liberty of Norton Folgate and Oil City Confidential. He is also attached to direct Gun Girl.
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
