29/06/2006

The first part of shooting ends tomorrow on J’ai toujours rêvé d’être un gangster (lit. “I’ve Always Dreamed of Being a Gangster”) by Samuel Benchetrit, who celebrated his 33rd birthday on the film’s set three days ago.

The cast – which features Sergi Lopez, Anna Mouglalis, Jean Rochefort, Lou Doillon, Belgian actors Bouli Lanners and Serge Larivière, as well as singer Alain Bashung – will meet up again in August in Paris to finish shooting the final scenes of the film.

For his second feature after 2003’s Janis and John (330,000 admissions, also starring Lopez), the filmmaker-theatre director-novelist has chosen to shoot a black and white, low budget picture made up of sketches, which he calls an almost experimental film.

Scripted by Benchetrit, the film is made up of four, loosely interconnected stories about characters who are trying to set up a swindling operation but fail or are just at their wits ends from being too nice to become real criminals. The film’s title, chosen by Benchetrit, seems to have been inspired by Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas (1990), which opens with the line, spoken by a child, "As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster."

Produced, like Janis and John, by Olivier Delbosc and Marc Missonnier for Fidélité Films, J’ai toujours rêvé d’être un gangster, which has a €2.8m budget and a 30-day production schedule, will be distributed in France in 2007 by Pan-Européenne, with Wild Bunch handling the film’s international sales.

(Translated from French)