Depardieu as DSK – The First Images

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The cameras have already begun to roll on Abel Ferrara's controversial new film starring Russia's most famous new citizen

The image of a dishevelled Dominique Strauss-Kahn being led away in handcuffs by American policemen is one that is familiar to people around the world, but for the French public it’s one that will be forever engrained in their memories in a way that Irish people of a certain age might recall the arrest Malcolm McArthur 30 years ago.

The arrest of the former socialist presidential candidate happened on the 15th of May 2011 after the former head of the IMF was arrested for the alleged sexual assault of a chamber maid in a New York luxury hotel.

The feature film project had been flagged for some months but Gérard Depardieu has now just started playing the part of DSK for America’s own enfant terrible of cinema Abel Ferrara. The New Yorker is famous for hard-hitting gritty films rooted in social realism and the picture above (taken on Friday night last by a journalist from the Huffington Post) attests to the fact that the cameras have begun to roll on this film version of the story of one man’s fall from grace which is sure to be as controversial as many of Ferrara’s other films.

Isabelle Adjani was meant to have played the part of Strauss-Kahn’s (now ex) wife Anne Sinclair in the film. However, last month Adjani (who has a son by Wicklow resident and triple Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis) pulled out of the project which was scheduled to begin shooting in January and which has encountered numerous delays. In a statement, the 57-year-old actress said that “in the current context, (the film) constitutes a destructive intrusion into the private lives of these two personalities” and for that reason, the role would not “correspond” to her work.

Depardieu had no such qualms about taking on the role. On the contrary, he said in an interview with Swiss television over a year ago that he would love to play DSK because he “didn’t like him” and also said in the same rambling slurred televised tête-à-tête that Strauss-Kahn’s arrogance was a quintessentially French trait.

As for the task of playing opposite Depardieu as Anne Sinclair, that has now fallen to 68-year-old Anglo-French actress Jacqueline Bisset.

(Related articles: Depardieu: The Actor, The Economic Crisis and the Russian, A Woman Scorned, Depardieu to play DSK because “I don’t like him”)

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