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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.