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PRODUCTION France / Belgium

End of principal photography in sight for The Emperor of Paris

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- Vincent Cassel, Olga Kurylenko, Freya Mavor and Denis Menochet are among the cast of the film by Jean-François Richet, being staged by Mandarin and sold by Gaumont

End of principal photography in sight for The Emperor of Paris
Actors Vincent Cassel and Olga Kurylenko

The end is in sight for the shoot for The Emperor of Paris [+see also:
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, the ninth feature by Jean-François Richet, following Inner City (nominated for the César Award for Best First Feature Film in 1996), Crack 6-T (1997), All About Love (2001), Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), the diptych Mesrine: Part 1 – Killer Instinct [+see also:
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and Mesrine: Part 2 – Public Enemy #1 [+see also:
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 (which earned him the César Award for Best Director in 2009), One Wild Moment [+see also:
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 (2015) and Blood Father [+see also:
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 (presented as a midnight screening at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival). 

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The cast of his new opus, which is set in the 19th century under the rule of the Empire and tells the story of Vidocq, an ex-con who has become a police chief in Paris, includes Vincent Cassel, whom the filmmaker is reuniting with following the aforementioned diptych on gangster Jacques Mesrine, which earned Cassel the César Award for Best Actor in 2009. He was also nominated for the same trophy in 1996, 2002 and 2016 for La HaineRead My Lips [+see also:
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 and My King [+see also:
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, and in the Best Supporting Role category in 2017 for It’s Only the End of the World [+see also:
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. Cassel also excelled in such titles as Black Swan and Eastern Promises [+see also:
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, and he will be gracing screens next year in Fleuve noir and Le Monde ou rien

He is joined by Germany’s August Diehl (popular in The Counterfeiters [+see also:
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Dark Inclusion [+see also:
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interview: Arthur Harari
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 and The Young Karl Marx [+see also:
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), Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace [+see also:
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Oblivion and due to hit screens in 2018 in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and Just a Breath Away), Scotland’s Freya Mavor (Sunshine on Leith [+see also:
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The Sense of an Ending [+see also:
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), Denis Menochet (very popular in Inglourious Basterds [+see also:
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, Lumière Award for Best New Actor in 2012 for Les Adoptés [+see also:
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, giving an exceptional performance recently in Custody [+see also:
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interview: Xavier Legrand
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]
), Patrick Chesnais (César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1989 and nominated in 2014 for Bright Days Ahead [+see also:
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, also nominated for the César Award for Best Actor in 2006) and Switzerland’s James Thierrée (César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2017 for Chocolat [+see also:
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). 

Written by Eric Besnard (with Jean-François Richet credited with co-penning the adaptation and the dialogue), the story kicks off in the clink. Renowned in prison circles for his fast and effective escapes, Vidocq is something of a legend in Toulon jail, where he's serving yet another sentence. But once again, it only takes him a few weeks to find a way out. While trying to lead a more peaceful life in the capital, he finds it harder to escape from his past, when he is wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit. In the eyes of both the police and the criminal underworld, Vidocq has become a marked man, so he sets about re-establishing the truth and cleansing his honour. In the process, he has no choice but to join forces with the Parisian police and in time becomes head of the brigade de sûreté, a group of ex-criminals tasked with infiltrating the city's murky underworld. Deploying methods much less conventional than the official forces of law and order, Vidocq and his men collar the crooks of Paris at an unrivalled rate. Successively delinquent, convict then policeman, Vidocq would go on to become the father of the French police and founder of the first private-detective agency in history.

Produced by Eric and Nicolas Altmayer for Mandarin ProductionThe Emperor of Paris is being co-produced by France 2 CinémaFrance 3 Cinéma, Belgian outfit Scope Pictures and Gaumont. Having also been pre-purchased by Canal+ and secured backing from the Ile-de-France region, the film will wrap its shoot on 18 December, after beginning on 26 September. The French distribution will be handled by Gaumont, for a planned release on 12 December 2018; Gaumont is also in charge of the international sales.

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(Translated from French)

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