HÀ NỘI — French Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng is giving the final touches to the script for his new movie project on French cuisine, titled Dodin Bouffant.

Dodin Bouffant is based on a gourmand created by French food writer, Marcel Rouff, under the title, La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet (The Passionate Epicure), which was published in 1924. A television film was also made based on the book in 1972 by director Edmond Tiborovsky with actors such as Marc Dudicourt, Nicole Maurey and Gillette Barbier.

Hùng said he was looking to shoot the movie as soon as he raised money.

Hùng has been widely known as a successful director of contemporary-style movies such as The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Cyclo (1995), I Come with the Rain (2009) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000).

His adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s bestselling Norwegian Wood (2010) was his first film in Japanese and he recently made a French debut in 2016, with Eternity.

Talking about the state of Vietnamese cinema, Hùng told Variety at the ongoing Singapore Film Festival: “It is always the same problem – it is the money. I think Vietnamese filmmakers are really courageous because they have to travel all over the world to find the money. It is something that is really difficult for the young generation. There is no place in the country where they can find money to make movies.” — VNS