Depardieu to star in US film on Strauss-Kahn scandal

AFP - Controversial US director Abel Ferrara says he is to make a film on the sex scandal that destroyed Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn's political career -- with Gerard Depardieu in the starring role.

A film about sex and politics, it would co-star Isabelle Adjani as Strauss-Kahn's wife Anne Sinclair, Ferrara told French newspaper Le Monde.

Strauss-Kahn, who was seen as a Socialist contender for the French presidency, was forced to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund last May after he was charged with sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid.

Charges were later dropped, but he remains dogged by sexual scandal in France.

Sinclair, a former television anchor and the multi-millionaire heiress to an art fortune, has stood by her husband throughout.

Strauss-Kahn's polished PR strategy By Jonathan WALSH / Shona BHATTACHARYYA

Ferrara told Le Monde the film would be shot in New York, Paris and Washington.

In recent months, the project had been frequently rumoured -- and just as frequently denied by Ferrara's producers Wildbunch.

This time however Ferrara told Le Monde that he was the director and no one was going to stop him talking about his film.

He had met Depardieu at the Deauville film festival last September and said he was everything a filmmaker could expect from an actor.

The script was already written, he added.

Ferrara is perhaps best known for the hard-hitting 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant," starring Harvey Keitel as a corrupt New York cop.

His films are often dark, violent stories dealing with the underside of life.

He frequently works with actors who themselves have an edgy reputation such as Keitel, Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe.