Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

In this final episode, we meet a group of risk-taking producers at the tail end of a wide-open period of French cinema. Jean-Pierre Rassam lavished money on filmmakers he trusted, and didn’t bother reading scripts. (He also lived a life of true excess, and claimed ties to Saudi bankers and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.) Christian Fechner had to manage a shoot with a star who had just had a heart attack and nobody wanted to insure. And producer and part-time magician Claude Berri was put to the test by Roman Polanski and the sprawling production of Tess.

La Grande Bouffe (1973) / Jean-Pierre Rassam / dir. Marco Ferreri
The Wing or the Thigh (1976) / Christian Fechner / dir. Claude Zidi
Tess (1979) / Claude Berri / dir. Roman Polanski