Robbery of Kim Kardashian West in Paris Inspires Film by Joann Sfar

By Elsa Keslassy

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Joann Sfar, the French comic book artist and filmmaker, recently wrapped “Fashion Week,” a graphic novel inspired by the headline-making robbery of Kim Kardashian West in her Paris hotel room in 2016. Sfar is also developing a French film loosely based on the incident.

Sfar is co-writing the script with Marion Festraëts (“Chefs”) and will be directing the film, which he said will be a comedy exploring the themes of feminism, masculinity and patriarchy in today’s society. Titled “Fashion Week,” the film will address “violence against women, the relationship between the very rich people and the less rich, the world of fashion and the encounter between figures of new and old worlds,” Sfar told Variety.

The plot of the movie will revolve around a group of older thieves who plan to rob a famous influencer during her trip to Paris and find themselves embroiled in the whirlwind of Fashion Week in the French capital. In 2016, Kardashian West was bound and gagged at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room by robbers who made off with millions of dollars of her jewelry, including her engagement ring.

The film will shoot mainly in French and will bring together an international cast, Sfar said. He added that he won’t be aiming to cast a lookalike of Kardashian but rather someone who captures what the reality-show star represents.

Clément Birnbaum and Joachim Nahum at Nabi Films are producing. Nabi Films, launched a year ago, is a subsidiary of Telfrance, which is a French production group owned by Newen (itself owned by TF1 Group). Birnbaum and Nahum are former executives at EuropaCorp.

Sfar previously wrote and directed the live-action films “The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun” and “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life,” which won three Cesar awards, including for best first film. He is best known for his comic book “The Rabbi’s Cat” and its Cesar-winning animated feature adaptation.

The graphic novel “Fashion Week” will come out in France in March and will be published by Dargaud.