French Film Director Xavier Giannoli Talks First Foray Into Series With Canal Plus-Backed ‘Of Money And Blood’ – Venice

Melanie Goodfellow
·5 min read
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Xavier Giannoli is one of those rare French directors who has a stronger relationship with the Venice Film Festival than Cannes back home.

He has competed for Venice’s Golden Lion three times in the last decade with Superstar (2012), Marguerite (2015) and the sumptuous Honoré de Balzac adaptation Lost Illusions (2021).

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The filmmaker is back for a fourth time this year playing Out of Competition with his first-ever drama series, the international thriller Of Money And Blood. All 12 episodes will world premiere in a marathon screening on Thursday, with further seances at the back end of the festival.

Liberally adapted from the eponymous book by investigative journalist Fabrice Arfi, the series delves into a real-life, carbon credit tax scam, which swindled the French state of at least $1.7 billion, in an operation that came to be known as the “fraud of the century” when it came to trial in 2018.

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Vincent Lindon plays Simon Weynachter, the customs inspector on a mission to track down and nail the unlikely masterminds behind the scam: small-time crook Alain Fitoussi (Ramzy Bedia) and high-class trader Jérôme Attias (Niels Schneider). Other cast members include Judith Chemla, David Ayala and Olga Kurylenko.

While the story’s origins are in France, the investigation travels to Asia and the Middle East and back to Europe and Brussels, where the idea of creating a pan-European market based on the carbon credit mechanism as a means to tackle climate change was first hatched.

The production reunites Giannoli with long-time producer Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films, who in turn partnered with French pay-TV giant Canal+ to bring the ambitious project together.

Deadline caught up with Giannoli ahead of the screening.

DEADLINE: What drew you to this story?

XAVIER GIANNOLI: The series is inspired by real facts in Fabrice Arfi’s book but it’s not a documentary. I was immediately hooked by the characters and the different social circles. I also liked the way it touched on very intimate things as well as much bigger questions about the state of the world – about greed, obsession with money and the sacrifice of human values. Then, there is also the environmental dimension.  The way that this attempt to find a way to help save the planet and to tackle global warming and was taken by crooks and turned into a cash machine.

DEADLINE: You previously condensed Balzac’s three-part novel Lost Illusions into a feature film, why couldn’t you do the same with Arfi’s book?

GIANNOLI: There were so many characters. The story goes from one country to another, one character to another, from one social circle to another. Then, you have to go into the intimate details of each character, their families, their backgrounds. At the same time, the story gets into the issue of money laundering, which is also an important political subject today, when you consider the complacency of some banks, and the way gangsters and dictators are able to hide their money in secret accounts.

DEADLINE: It is the first time you and your producer Oliver Delbosc have worked on a drama series together and also in partnership with Canal+ in this way. Was the process very different?

GIANNOLI: I went into the project thinking I wouldn’t have the same creative freedom and that they would impose certain things, like a happy ending, or a cliff-hanger… but on the contrary. I have to thank the Original Creation team at Canal+. They left me totally free in exactly the same way when I write for cinema.

DEADLINE: Was the writing process different? 

GIANNOLI: Canal+ introduced me to writer Jean-Baptiste Delafon (Baron Noir, Promises). We structured the episodes, although it changed during the actual writing and shooting… and then I wrote… Writing for me, is the moment where I see the film. As I’m a both writer and director, it’s at that moment when I visualize the staging, the movement, the expressions of the characters and how they are going to move. There was no sense that I was writing to a commission. I was totally free. In fact, Canal+ encouraged me to make it a personal series, a “series d’auteur” and I had the same control as I do for my films.

Vincent Lindon In Of Money And Blood

DEADLINE: Why did you cast Vincent Lindon in the main role of the investigator?

GIANNOLI: I previously made The Apparition with Vincent. There is something searching in his performance, his expression, his presence, and even in how he is in real-life. There is a sense he is someone who wants to understand things with concrete facts. I like creating characters with a fixed idea. From a dramatic point of view, it can create a lot of tension. I like obsessed characters. He has this look of someone who is always observing and won’t put up with lies. It’s why I first cast him for The Apparition.

DEADLINE: And Ramzy Bedia in the role of small-time crook Alain Fitoussi? He is better known as a mainstream comedy actor in France. [recent credits have included Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom]

GIANNOLI: I don’t have a type of actor that I work with. The important thing for me is that it is the right person for the role. Ramzy immediately got into the role. He’s a really big star in France. It was a dream to see him take possession of this role, playing this character, who is at once charming and threatening.

DEADLINE: You were last in Venice with Lost Illusions which played in Competition. What does it mean to you to return with a drama series?

GIANNOLI: It’s a huge honor and above all a pleasure as I love Venice. I still have an incredible memory of the Lost Illusions screening in that theatre (Il Palazzo del Cinema), which is so magical, so extraordinarily noble. When you’re part of the filmmaking team, you sit in the balcony behind and you can see everything. I guess the fact that Alberto Barbera has selected the series means it has a certain cinematic vibration and that he felt it had its place in Venice. I am happy about that because it was one of my ambitions.

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