31/03/2005

Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois (=Lady C. and the man of the woods) which started shooting last Tuesday in the French province of Limousin, is Pascale Ferran’s come back, eleven years after Petits arrangements avec les morts (1994 Caméra d’or for film debut in Cannes) and ten years after L’âge des possibles (Fipresci Prize in Venice, Golden 7 of the best TV movie and of the best director in 1997). This film, adapted from the second version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover by Pascale Ferran, Roger Bohbot and Pierre Trividic, is actually both a mini-series for TV (2x90mn) and a two-hour feature film. The cast includes Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloc’h, and Hippolyte Girardot who will respectively play Sir Clifford, Constance, and the man of the wood, and thus narrate the story of a relationship where all sense of social or gender hierarchy is cancelled.

Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois is produced by Gilles Sandoz for Maïa Films. For the mini-series, coproduced by the TV channel Arte France with the help of the Region Limousin and €600,000 from the COSIP (audiovisual programmes industry support fund which depends on the Centre National de la Cinématographie - CNC), the budget is €3.2M. The €2.3M feature film is a European coproduction involving Maïa Films (France - 70 %), Saga Film (Belgium - 12 %), and Zephyr Films (UK - 18 %). Television will start broadcasting it in the period end 2006-beginning 2007 ; the cinema release is scheduled for beginning 2007 —Films Distribution will handle international sales.
The mini-series will take 13 to 14 weeks to shoot ; the feature film will take seven more weeks. The film is located mainly in Limousin and in Corrèze, apart from four weeks on the Riviera and one week in England.

(Translated from French)