EXCLUSIVE: Hugo Becker [pictured] stars in project from the director of Dealer.
Paris-based Versatile is starting sales at the European Film Market (EFM) on buzzy young French film-maker Jean Luc Herbulot’s organised crime thriller Döner set against the backdrop of a kebab restaurant in Paris.
It is the second feature for Herbulot – who is represented by WME and has projects in development in the US too — after his much-praised French-language feature debut Dealer, which shot over two weeks on a budget of just $175,000.
Hugo Becker, whose recent credits include playing ambitious political aide Cyril in hit series Baron Noir, plays a Max, a young man with entrepreneurial ambitions who gets a job in a kebab shop following his release from jail. He soon learns that there is more to the fast food joint than meets the eye.
“I got the idea for the script one night when I went for a kebab with a friend and a fight broke out as I was leaving. It shocked me because I’d never associated kebab shops with violence and it got me thinking,” said Herbulot.
“Kebab shops are also one of the few places in Paris, and the rest of Europe even, where at two in the morning you get people from all walks of life and parts of society. I liked that aspect too,” added the film-maker.
The feature – which is due to shoot this year — is co-production between Paris-based companies Rumble Fish and Ran Entertainment.
Versatile has also boarded Romanian director Andreï Cretulescu’s black comedy Charlton Heston, about a distraught recent widower who is visited by his late wife’s younger lover.
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