WASHINGTON: Academy Award-winning director Claude Lelouch has lost the latest script of his film and 50 years of notes in a theft that took place while he was returning from holidays.
According to Deadline, two of his bags were stolen from outside the Paris office of his production company, Les Films 13, on January 2.
The robbery took place as Lelouch was exiting his car in front of his production offices in Paris’ tony 8th district. He was returning from the mountains and placed the suitcases on the ground as he went around to the other side of the car and they were quickly snatched by some passersby.
He shared, “I got out of the car, took out two bags in which I had 50 years of notes, observations, snippets of conversations overheard in cafés or in the street which help feed my films, and my last script. In the time it took me to close the car, the bags disappeared. I didn’t see anything. It’s unbelievable. My films are nothing other than the result of my observations.”
The veteran director has put out a plea to the thieves in France`leading publication asking for the return of the script and notes for the film, which is titled ‘Yes and No’.
The movie was reportedly based on the notes and envisioned as a multi-generational political and cinematic saga focused on two families, extending from his birth year, 1937, to present day.
The 80-year-old Palme d’Or winner noted that this is the only existing copy of the script and that the notes are irreplaceable.
“They have my address. I make this plea to them. I am waiting for a miracle,” he said in his appeal to the thieves to return the script and notebooks. He said the years of notebooks “have accompanied me my whole life,” explained Lelouch.