Dubai: If you thought Mission Impossible was the ultimate tribute to Dubai when it comes to the big screen, wait until you see what Vanessa Paradis has been up to.
The French actress jetted in last November - the same time Tom Cruise was in town shooting Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - to film Dubai Flamingos, a full-length feature shot entirely in the UAE.
The singer turned actress - famous as the long-term partner of US actor Johnny Depp - was joined in the UAE by Spanish actor Sergi Lopez and French actress Florence Thomassin, who can currently be seen in UAE cinemas in the film The Princess of Monpensier.
The film is the second feature from French filmmaker Delphine Kreuter, who attracted attention with her 2008 debut feature 57,000 Kilometers Between Us, selected at Rotterdam, London and Tribeca among other film festivals. Kreuter and her team spent more than 30 days in the UAE filming at various locations.
The film centres on Vincent (Lopez), a flying instructor in Dubai. After his wife Livia (Thomassin) disappears, he has a strange encounter in a car park with Jackie (Paradis), a beautiful young woman in tears. The two then set off on a road trip across the emirates to search for his wife.
Scenes, visible in a trailer for the film, show shots in the desert behind the Al Khail Road, DIFC, at Ski Dubai, on the Al Ain Road - including the Universal Studios arch - and at an abandoned car lot.
Kreuter reveals she wrote the script on a visit to Dubai but wanted to use the location as a dreamlike context to the film.
"In 2008, the French radio station France Culture granted me the "Villa Médicis Hors Les Murs" residence. I chose Dubai, and was supposed to stay there for three months. On the 31st of March, 2009, I let my plane fly back to Paris without me. I was certain my second feature film had to take place here," she says.
"I wrote the script in Dubai, animated with the desire to both shoot and present the film there. I was very glad when Dubai Flamingo was finally approved by the government.
I chose not to talk of Dubai as it really is, neither did I want to talk of its inhabitants. The town and the desert are only the context of my story."
Dubai Flamingos is co-produced by France-based Alfama Films Portugal's Clap Filmes, while local production support was provided by Dubai-based e-Motion International on sets in Dubai and Al Ain.
Producer Paulo Branco told Cineuropa, a European cinema website, the film has not yet been bought. "In the French film industry's current situation, I have no financing. This film is a crazy venture," he said.
The film, which is French with English subtitles, is slated for a December release.
