Catherine Breillat, the director who became a cause celebre with her sexually explicit Romance, is three weeks from starting production on Scenes Intimes, a picture about making films and, in particular, shooting nude scenes.

French sales house Flach Pyramide International has picked up international rights to the film, which re-teams Breillat with rising talent Roxanne Mesquida, star of A Ma Soeur, (Fat Girl). Co-starring are Nikita star Anne Parillaud and Gregoire Colin, star of Sade and La Reine Margot.

"People have so many illusions about what goes on a film set," Breillat said. "I wanted to set the record straight."

The $3.1m picture is being produced through Jean-Francois Lepetit's Flach Films, with shooting scheduled to start Nov 19.

The success of Romance, which clocked up just under one million admissions in Europe, has sparked numerous Breillat seasons around the world and brought a re-evaluation of her work. Her latest film Brief Crossing (Breve Traversee) was this year presented at Venice out of competition, while the unreleased Une Vraie Jeune Fille has since found distributors.