EXCLUSIVE: Director Abel Ferrara is such an indie director that boxofficemojo.com doesn’t even index him by name. His most successful movie might be “The Bad Lieutenant.” It made $2 million in 1992. Most people probably don’t know who he is.
But that’s all about to change. The word from France is that Ferrara’s “DSK” movie, “Welcome to New York,” will get a surprise screening, probably a midnight show, on May 16th. That’s because Wild Bunch lets “Welcome to New York” loose all over Europe on May 17th.
Just a couple of days earlier, on May 14th, Wild Bunch is releasing “Welcome” on Video on Demand and the internet all over France. They decided to bypass theaters and go straight out to as many people as possible as quickly as they could. It’s a very clever idea. (IFC Films will release it in the U.S.)
Famed French actor Gerard Depardieu and 2014 Golden Globe winner Jacqueline Bisset star in “Welcome to New York,” a thinly disguised version of the real life story of former IMF director Dominique Straus-Kahn and his journalist wife Anne Sinclair. DSK, as he is known, was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York in mid May 2011, exactly three years ago. He was prevented from leaving New York while his fate was decided. The result was an international scandal. His wealthy wife stood by him until they returned to France, and then dumped him.
In Ferrara’s film, Depardieu plays a professor named Devereaux married to a wealthy woman who fuels his political ambitions. He winds up in a New York hotel room, and we know the rest.
One description of the film, on the IMDB, reads: “Mr. Devereaux is a powerful man. A man who handles billions of dollars every day. A man who controls the economic fate of nations. A man driven by a frenzied and unbridled sexual hunger. A man who dreamed of saving the world and who cannot save himself. A terrified man. A lost man.”
I am told that the screening remains shrouded in secrecy because DSK’s lawyers are said to be sniffing around, looking for trouble. They haven’t seen the movie so far. But I guess they will on the 14th, on TV, the same day Cannes officially opens. Sacre bleu!
Other cast members include Drena DeNiro, stepdaughter of Robert DeNiro and daughter of Diahnne Abbott, as well as veteran actors Ronald Guttman and Paul Hipp.
