22/12/2016 - Benoît Magimel and Laura Smet star in a film centering around "the scam of the century". A Les Films Manuel Munz production

Olivier Marchal and Benoît Magimel on the set of Carbon (© Mika Cotellon)

The last clapperboard slammed this week on French-Belgium co-production Carbon [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the 5^th fictional feature film by Olivier Marchal following on from Gangsters (2002), 36 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (which received eight César nominations in 2005, including for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) MR73 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2008) and Gang Story [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2011). The director, who is a former policeman and is also known internationally for TV series Braquo, brought together a cast featuring Benoît Magimel (who won the performance award at Cannes in 2001 for The Piano Teacher [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the César for Best Supporting Actor in 2016 for Standing Tall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuelle Bercot
film profile], and was recently acclaimed in 150 Milligrams [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Laura Smet (who was nominated for the 2004 César for Most Promising Actress for Eager Bodies, was acclaimed for her performance in Yves Saint Laurent [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jalil Lespert
film profile] and French Dolls [+see also:
trailer
film profile] among others, and who we’ll see next year in Les Gardiennes), rapper Gringe (who we saw on the big screen in Comment c'est loin [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Idir Chender (a rising star with a background in theatre), Michaël Youn (Héros [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Dani (who was nominated for the 2007 César for Best Supporting Actress for Orchestra Seats [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Patrick Catalifo, the famous Gérard Depardieu, Moussa Maaskri and Vladimir Ostermann.

Written by Emmanuel Naccache (the director of Kidon [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) with contributions from the director, the screenplay centres around Antoine Roca, an ordinary man who risks losing his business and stages a scam which turns into the heist of the century. Caught up in a life of crime, he must deal with betrayal, murder and score settling. A plot inspired by a real-life case from 2008-2009 of VAT fraud on carbon emission quotas, which the Court of Auditors described as "the scam of the century".

Produced by Les Films Manuel Munz, Carbon is being co-produced by EuropaCorp and Belgian company Nexus Factory, and has been pre-purchased by OCS and Ciné+. Distribution in France will be handled by EuropaCorp on 1 November 2017.

(Translated from French)