03/07/2002

Marseille is flavour of the month for French film producers. Alain Bévérini´s new film, Total Khéops, based on the popular novel by crime writer Jean-Claude Izzo and starring Richard Bohringer as a Marseille-based cop called Fabio Montale is the latest to have been made in the multiethnic atmosphere of that city. In 1996 Marseille was the location of choice for 25 features, by 2000, that number had grown by 62 to 87 and last year, a record 120 films were made there. Only Paris is more popular than Marseille in the location top ten.
Numerous French filmmakers followed Robert Guédiguian´s example and set up home in the coastal port; they include Claire Devers for Les marins perdus - The Lost Mariners, starring Bernard Giraudeau and Gérard Krawczyk and Taxi 3. In 2003, the natural sets will be joined by a new 2,270 square meter film studio, budgeted at €30m, and consequently directors will no longer have to move elsewhere for post-production facilities.

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