19/11/2010

Last Friday in Paris, the eight-week shoot wrapped on documentary filmmaker Fleur Albert’s debut narrative feature: Stalingrad Lovers. The film, which explores the themes of drugs and social exclusion, stars Jean-Patrick Koné, Mehdi Kadri, Jean-Paul Edwiges, Carole Eugenie, Eric Ebouaney, Françoise Le Plenier and Lionel Codino.

Co-scripted by the director, Laurent Roth and Olivier Volpi, the film opens with the death of Medhi, a drug addict who has died in the street. His friend Isaïe promised him that if anything bad happened to him, he would send his body back to his home country, Senegal, and recover debts from his clients in the working-class area of Goutte d’Or in Paris. To successfully carry out his plan, Isaïe who lives in a squat near the railway tracks, recruits and gets organised.

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Stalingrad Lovers is produced by Stéphane Jourdain for La Huit Productions. Its budget of around €1.7m includes an advance on receipts from the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC), a €384,000 grant from the Ile-de-France region and a pre-acquisition from CinéCinéma. The project was developed with backing from Centre Images, the MEDIA Programme, PROCIREP and the Maison de l'Image of Basse-Normandie.

(Translated from French)