Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to sue director Abel Ferrara for defamation over Welcome to New York movie.
“My client finds the film’s accusations of rape intolerable,” DSK’s lawyer said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was disgusted and frightened by Welcome to New York, which stars Gerard Depardieu in the lead role
Welcome to New York, screened at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, is about a French banker who assaults a maid at a New York hotel.
DSK, 65, quit as head of the IMF in 2011 after facing similar allegations.
He was arrested in New York three years ago when a hotel maid at New York’s Sofitel accused him of trying to rape her.
The charges were eventually dropped, and DSK subsequently reached a settlement with the maid, Nafissatou Diallo.
DSK’s laywer, Jean Veil, said the former IMF boss would take legal action for “defamation over the accusations of rape and the insinuations made throughout the movie”.
He added that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was “disgusted and frightened” by the film, which stars Gerard Depardieu in the lead role.
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Welcome to New York movie starring Gerard Depardieu as a disgraced politician based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival.
The controversial movie has been much-anticipated but will not be shown as part of the official festival program.
Instead, Welcome to New York will be shown at midnight on Friday at a private beach screening.
Welcome to New York tells of how a French politician is accused of attempted rape in a New York hotel room.
Welcome to New York movie starring Gerard Depardieu as a disgraced politician based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival
DSK quit his role as boss of the International Monetary Fund in 2011 after being accused of a sex attack on a maid in a Manhattan hotel. Once seen as a French presidential hopeful, Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn also had to give up his political ambitions.
Charges were eventually dropped and DSK subsequently reached a settlement with the maid. Two other cases against him were also dismissed.
The two-hour film, in which Gerard Depardieu plays a character called Deveraux, was funded mostly in the US and the director Abel Ferrara is also American.
As such, the French-language production counts as being American.
Welcome to New York will be released in cinemas in countries outside France, but in France it is being made available, at least initially, on pay-to-view websites.
“We realized it was the perfect film to experiment with this type of release,” producer Vincent Maraval told Variety magazine.
“We’ll get to target the widest possible audiences at a faster pace, with a smaller investment… and preserve some kind of curiosity around the movie before the press starts unveiling what’s in it.”
In the same interview, Vincent Maraval also criticized the French political, TV and movie establishment, saying: “No French TV station wanted to finance us.
“Everyone warned us not to make this film, both our friends and our enemies.”
Vincent Maraval told Variety there was an “incestuous relationship” between the “media and political elites” in France, which made it impossible to make films about “current affairs”.
Gerard Depardieu put some of his own money into the film and took a low fee of 100,000 euros.
The politician’s wife is played by English actress Jacqueline Bisset.
Welcome to New York tells the story of how a French economics professor becomes a politician backed by his wife’s millions, rises to fame and prosperity only to be brought down by accusations of rape.
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