It's the talk of the town. Abel Ferrara's highly-anticipated movie inspired by the sordid sex scandal that brought down IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn got its world premiere Saturday in Cannes, reports GlobalPost.
Far from being shown in one of the big, plush theatres in the festival hall, the film starring Gerard Depardieu as a man with striking similarities to "DSK", whose alleged 2011 sexual assault on a New York hotel maid shook the world, was screened in a small, local cinema.
"Do you know who I am?" reads the poster advertising the film "Welcome to New York", as a handcuffed, suited man seen from behind faces flashing photographers with the gleaming lights of New York in the background.
The premiere of the film by US director Ferrara had caused a scrum among film buffs and journalists alike, all keen to get hold of one of the 500 seats available in the cinema.
"It's an interesting film on two fronts: It's Abel Ferrara and it's an incredible case," said Ludo Vangenechten, head of programming for a movie theatre in Belgium, just before the screening.
"I'm curious of the result. They chose to create a buzz and they succeeded."
The start of Ferrara's film states that it is a fiction inspired by a court case but it has been widely seen as a fictionalised account of the downfall of a politician who was once a strong contender to become president of France.
Read more of this report from GlobalPost.