PONZI’S SCHEME / Le Système de Ponzi

North American Premiere • TV Movie • Dramatic Comedy • France, 2014

Blu-ray • Color and B&W • 85 min

Directed by: Dante Desarthe

Written by: Dante Desarthe, from the play by David Lescot

Produced by: Les Films du Poisson, Arte, Pictanovo

Cast: Scali Delpeyrat , Celine Milliat-Baumgartner , Elizabeth Mazev 

International Sales: Film and Picture - http://www.filmandpicture.com

Original Broadcast: Arte, June 26, 2014

Rio de Janeiro, 1941. A man on his deathbed tells his tumultuous life’s story to a journalist. His name is Carlo Ponzi, a charismatic Italian who immigrated to the US at the turn of the century. In just seventeen years, he rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in Boston, attracting investors from the world over with promises of astronomical returns on their investments. His method – paying out previously existing customers with funds from the more numerous new customers – would come to international infamy as the Ponzi Scheme. Writer/director Dante Desarthe was approached by Arte to make the movie as a part of a series of low-budget films adapted from the theater. Working from the David Lescot play, Desarthe was able to cast many of the actors from the theater production, who knew their roles perfectly.  But a truncated shooting schedule forced him to find a creative solution to the problem of recreating the period. Desarthe and his cinematographer Dominique Colin hit upon the idea of using the old technique of rear projection to put his actors into real archival footage. The result is a visually fresh artificiality that reflects Ponzi’s delusion that he had achieved the American dream of the self-made man. For their efforts, Desarthe and Colin won Best Director and Best Cinematographer at the Luchon International Film Festival.