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Josee Dayan and Producer Jean-Luc Azoulay chose the adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, a prolific author turned adapter. "Catherine Deneuve quickly agreed to play Madame de Merteuil," continued Bernard Paccalet. "After that everything moved fast." The cast-list was augmented by a number of prestigious names: Rupert Everett in the role of Valmont, Nastassia Kinski playing Madame de Tourvel, Leelee Sobieski as Cecile Volanges and Danielle Darrieux as Rosemonde.

"Les Liaisons Dangereuses is an inexhaustible subject. Doesn't it give us food for thought about women throughout the ages?" muses Caroline Champetier, the Director of Photography jointly chosen by Josee Dayan and Catherine Deneuve, with whom she had already worked on Philippe Garrel's Le Vent de la Nuit. "The story is set in the jet-set world of the 'sixties. For the characters, those years encompassed a wide variety of ideas: extreme modernism in the case of Valmont, but much more traditional views for Rosemonde. Obviously this confronted me with different kinds of space, lines, and styles of architecture, which led to different ways of working with lighting."

Catherine Deneuve is the key actress in this new version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. For her, Caroline Champetier opted for photography which is, at the same time, elegant, soft, and mysterious. "This influenced my choice of film," she says: "Apart from a few exteriors using Kodak Vision 320 T 5277 film, I shot everything on Vision 500 T 5263 film - the most adaptable, soft, and delicate emulsion. It is the best for showing a woman's face, which has to reflect real expression - but with consideration and respect. To make the film even softer for exteriors, I shot it at half-sensitivity: at the bottom of the curve. It continues to 'follow' you, since it is extraordinarily flexible. It is perfect for major TV dramas."

	Cecile de Volanges

In contrast to Josee Dayan, the experience is something new for Champetier, who, like Deneuve, has never before worked for television. "Since I'm always taking risks with images, my only worry was with underexposure," she admits. "Since Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a story in which the shadowy side of the characters has a real presence, it would have been a misinterpretation to portray them in full light. My work on the visual image consists of maintaining a balance, producing something that is accessible to all, but which still holds an air of mystery. As a result, the photography is more subtle than usual in these great historical made-for-TV productions since it reflects the internal psychology of the characters."

Three countries financed and co-produced Les Liaisons Dangereuses. France put up 60%, while Canada and Great Britain contributed 20% each. "This didn't simplify things," admits Jean-Jacques Albert, the Production Director, "suddenly we had not one, but three budgets to manage; not just one, but three crews to co-ordinate."

In all, filming lasted thirteen weeks: seven in France - four in Paris and three on the Cote d'Azur - two in Scotland for the exterior scenes plus four in Canada for the studio shots. "It's a Director's fantasy to think the studio is faster than natural sets," says Caroline Champetier. "It is the case when working with straight lines. But Josee Dayan likes to direct with absolute freedom. With her, we go forward shot-by-shot, telling the story as we go. Obviously, this needs me, as the DP, to anticipate what is coming. I want to recreate an ambience every time, including the appearance of the faces since this involves a mystery. It's not a mystery in the style of La Chambre Jaune, with part of the picture in the shadows. I'm talking about the mystery seen in characters' faces and their expressions. It's here that I found Rupert Everett extraordinarily photogenic opposite Catherine Deneuve - at the height of her mystery - and Nastassia Kinski. Incredibly moving."

Always very close to the actors, Caroline Champetier follows her profession with unrestrained commitment. "Working with lighting is a central, rather than peripheral, part of cinematic work. On set, my concentration is so intense that it risks progressively separating me from the crew. It's true. With lighting, you can easily slip into something resembling an autistic state."

Filmed using a Panavision camera fitted with Primo lenses, the film will be available in two versions and two formats.

	Josee Dayan Director, President of the International Festival of Luchon (February 6-9, 2003) Josee Dayan was born in Algiers. Her father was a TV director and grandmother was a movie theater owner. With more than one hundred of TV-films in her list, Josee Dayan has a well-deserved reputation for making her films at great speed. In recent years this allowed her to make a number of impressive results.

	Catherine Deneuve as Marquise de Merteuil Catherine Deneuve was born in 1943, in Paris, France. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was a teenager, and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier part in Le Vice et la Vertu (1962). But her breakthrough came with the excellent musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1963). She then played a schizophrenic killer in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and a married woman who works as a part-time prostitute every afternoon in 'Luis Bunuel' 's masterpiece Belle de jour (1967). She also worked with Bunuel in Tristana (1970) and gave a great perormance for 'Truffaut' La in Sirene du Mississippi (1969), a kind of apotheosis of her "frigid femme fatale" persona. In the seventies she didn't find parts of that caliber, but her magnificent work in 'Truffaut' 's The Last Metro (1980), as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris revived her career. She was also very good in the recent epic drama Indochine (1992), for which she earned her first Academy Award Nominaton (Best Actress). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert and the younger Juliette Binoche.

	Nastassja Kinski as Madame de Tourvel The daughter of actor Klaus Kinski, this slender, pouty brunette made a bid for stardom in the early 1980s after receiving considerable attention in the title role of Tess (1979), directed by Roman Polanski. But aside from a few noteworthy leads-in Cat People (1982), Unfaithfully Yours and Paris, Texas (both 1984)- she failed to get the meaty roles that would have sustained her as a box-office draw. She's better known for her wellpublicized offscreen antics, and for a striking poster in which she posed with a snake wrapped around her! She has one child with composer/producer Quincy Jones.

	Rupert Everett as Viconte de Valmont British born Rupert Everett grew up in privileged circumstances, but the wry, sometimes arrogant intellectual was a rebel from the very beginning. At the age of 7, he was placed into the care of Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College where he trained classically on the piano. He was expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London for clashing with his teachers and instead apprenticed himself at the avant-garde Glasgow Citizen's Theater in Scotland, performing in such productions as ‘Don Juan’ and ‘Heartbreak House’. In 1984, he successfully transferred another stage role, Another Country (1984), to film, and became England's hottest new international star. But, again, the rebel doused his own career by clashing with the press and even with his own fans. In 1989, Everett announced his own homosexuality - an announcement that could have mortally wounded his film career. Instead, over time, it has had the opposite effect. His career revitalized as Julia Roberts gay confidante in My Best Friends Wedding (1995), and has continued to bloom in such films as Shakespeare in Love (1998) playing Christopher Marlowe, An Ideal Husband (1999) and Midsummer Night's Dream, A (1999) as Oberon.