Portrait of the artists

Guillaume Canet as Zola and Guillaume Gallienne as the artist in Cézanne And Me Photo: Pathé

Surrounded by canvases of paintings by Paul Cézanne - from his still life works such as Apples and Oranges to the Bathers - there could no better setting than to talk up a new film Cézanne And Me (Cézanne Et Moi) than the Musée d’Orsay, the former turn of the century railway station now one of Paris’s most popular galleries housing the most comprehensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works.

Gathered in the gilt and mirrored first-floor restaurant the buyers, distributors and media in the city for the 18th Rendezvous with French Cinema (organised by the promotional body UniFrance) saw early scenes from the film by director Danièle Thompson, which is now in post-production and slated for a French release in mid-September preceded by a likely international launch at the Toronto International Film Festival the same month.

Guillaume Gallienne at the Musée d’Orsay for the launch of the new film Cézanne And Me in which he plays the artist (with director Danièle Thompson) Photo: Richard Mowe

Thompson, the daughter of legendary script-writer Gérard Oury (La Grande Vadrouille) has earned a reputation for light comedies such as La Bûche, Jet Lag, Orchestra Seats and It Happened in Saint-Tropez (Des Gens Qui s’Embrassent). When the latter, an ensemble comedy with Monica Bellucci and Kad Merad, proved a critical disaster, Thompson decided that the best way to get over the debacle was to immerse herself in a new project - completely different from anything she had attempted previously: an ambitious costume drama and her sixth feature.

“I had the impression that they were gunning for me and the best way out was to get on with a film that I had wanted to do for a long time which describes the passionate and volatile friendship between Cézanne and Zola over more than 40 years. I wrote the script which involved a lot of research and we filmed it over last summer. We’re now at the editing stage,” she said.

Director Danièle Thompson talks up her new film Cézanne And Me at the Musée d’Orsay Photo: Richard Mowe

The two met for the first time when Cezanne was 12 and Zola 13 at school in Aix-en-Provence. The artist came from a bourgeois background while Zola was the son of impoverished Italian immigrants. “The story of their attraction to each other coming from completely different backgrounds was fascinating,” said Thompson. Gallienne who earned a certain notoriety for voicing Paddington in the French dubbed version as well as a César for Me, Myself And Mum, said that Cézanne was a genius whose genius was only recognised relatively late on. “Zola suggested that the painter inspired his writing,” he added.

She chose two actors for the roles with whom she had never worked before - Guillaume Gallienne (Me, Myself and Mum) as Cézanne and Guillaume Canet (Blood Ties and Tell No One) who plays Zola. Also among the cast is Scots actress Freya Mavor (The Lady In The Car with Glasses And A Gun) with Gérard Meylan as Cézanne’s father and Isabelle Candelier as Zola’s mother.

Thompson says that the film explores the pair’s fears and ambitions, charts their relationship through the early days in Aix-en-Provence, their arrival in Paris’ heady cultural scene and their diverging professional and sentimental experiences.

The film is being released by Pathé.