03/10/2003

The actress Emmanuelle Béart is taking on a new project, appearing in the cast of the new film by Marion Vernoux, À Boire ("To Drink"). After having starred in two films by famous filmmakers like Téchiné (Strayed) and Rivette (The Story of Marie and Julien), the actress is going back to comedy, working with a director famous for featuring modern women who are searching for an impossible serenity for their lives.

This is Marion Vernoux’s fifth feature film and he has worked on a screenplay written in collaboration with Frédéric Jardin and Thomas Bigedain: it’s the story of a lucky meeting after an accident and the new relationship between three characters played by Edouard Baer, Atmen Khelif and Emmanuelle Béart. She is to replace Marion Cotillard (Love me if you dare), playing the part of a woman looking for new emotions, who the director thought of as a specialist after her performance in Love etc with Charlotte Gainsbourg in 1996, Rien à faire with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in 1999 and Reines d'un jour with Karin Viard in 2001. Now Emanuelle Béart has the chance to return to the sphere of comedy after she worked on Pranzo di Natale, and is an opportunity to forget the dramas she’s lived through, both in real life and at the cinema, over the last year.

This new film is produced by Alain Rozanes and Pascal Verroust from ADR Productions (Marion Vernoux’s partners for the third time) and by Marco Cherqui from Chics Films. The film will have a budget of €4.4 million (as opposed to the €3.05 million spent in 2001 for Reines d'un jour). It is co-produced by France 3 Cinéma and Rhône-Alpes Cinéma, and A boire will be set in the snows of Val d'Isère. Shooting is due to start on October 27.

(Translated from French)