Between Charlotte Casiraghi and Dimitri Rassam, the story began in a wonderful way. It was during the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017 that the son of Carole Bouquet and Jean-Pierre Rassam and the daughter of Caroline de Monaco and Stefano Casiraghi met for the first time. From these magical moments resulted a magnificent romance, crowned with a marriage celebrated twice and the birth of a little boy, Balthazar, aged six today. But at the start of the year, we learned that the love between the lovebirds had finally gone.
After seven years of a seemingly cloudless affair, Charlotte Casiraghi and Dimitri Rassam no longer form a couple. A hard blow for the two exes who had to relearn how to live without each other, while maintaining good relationships for the well-being and balance of their only child. Carole Bouquet subtly spoke about the subject on the set of C to youreaffirming the importance of being there for your children while remaining in your place: “I experience their joys and sorrows intensely, trying not to show them. I make myself available to talk, watching for the slightest gateways if they want to confide in me. I try to be discreet because we know, as a mother, that we are not always in the best position to help. When someone is in painthere’s not much we can do except be there and reassure them of their love.”
If Dimitri Rassam spoke very little about the separation, Charlotte Casiraghi nevertheless gave a few words to the Telegraphindicating that she had found in literature and philosophy the means to get back on her feet: “Reading works by women writers has helped me, not living according to expectations and judgments, for me it is important to free myself from certain conventions.”
It was in the shadows and with the greatest discretion that Charlotte Casiraghi and Dimitri Rassam managed the breakup. And if it was through certain pages that the daughter of Caroline of Monaco, recently bereaved by the loss of her grandmother Fernanda, found comfort, Dimitri Rassam was able to count on his talent and on one of the biggest projects of his life which saw the light of day this year.
The Count of Monte Cristo, a saving film for Dimitri Rassam
In the month of June, Le Comte de Monte Cristoa film directed by Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, was released in theaters. And the duo, as well as producer Dimitri Rassam and Pierre Niney, hero of the film, probably did not expect such a reception in French cinemas. After just six months, Le Comte de Monte Cristo rubs 10 million admissions, thus becoming one of the biggest box office successes. A few weeks before its release, at the Cannes Film Festival, the feature film was entitled to a 20-minute standing ovation to which Carole Bouquet, Dimitri Rassam’s mother, and Darya, the daughter the producer had with Masha Novoselova, proudly took part.
We must believe that Dimitri Rassam has been living a waking dream since the release of the film, he who “does what he loved as a child” as Carole Bouquet revealed, still on the set of C to you. In a post published on Instagram on June 28, Dimitri Rassam spoke of the good that the success of the film had given him and to what extent it had allowed him to get through a bad patch : “I no longer dared to let myself truly believe it. Believe it is possible this wonderful welcome that you offer us. Yet I hoped for it so much, I even needed it, beyond what I was willing to admit to myself. There are films that inspire those who make them even more than what they crystallize on screen. The one more than all the others as far as I’m concerned. Firstly because I am immensely proud of it. Proud of the work, proud of the journey, accomplished with two friends whose meeting fifteen years ago changed my professional life, my life in short. Then because it belongs to a cinema to which I myself have always wanted to belong.”
He continued his message, evoking the formation of the film during “a period of tumult which shook” his very capacity to believe, to make sense: “Its success will not necessarily chase away this spleen, I will undoubtedly remain nostalgic for a time that I did not know, for a world which probably never existed anywhere other than in my fantasies. I know very well that the fate of this film will in no way alleviate the melancholy that inhabits me, however it is only more precious, more beautiful. It does not replace or erase anything. He gets involved in all of this, he takes his place, and instantly fills me with joy.”
This release is not the only good news with which Dimitri Rassam experienced the end of the year. This Monday, December 16 at Figarothe big producer announced the birth of his new baby after two years of hard work. His name is Yapluka, a fund intended to finance large-scale European cinema.
“My conviction is that there is a treasure trove of stories in European heritage, and that we can tell them from Europe” declared Dimitri Rassam to the daily. Thanks to Yapluka, the literary saga The Cursed Kings by Maurice Druon will be entitled to his adaptation cinematographic before another project around the foreign legion on which he has also been working for many years. A challenge that Dimitri Rassam is personally launching as producer and who will once again be accompanied by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, to whom we already owe Le Comte de Monte Cristo. Seven films are already planned, with the start of filming for the first part set for 2026. It is thanks to fundraising of several tens of millions of euros that Dimitri Rassam sees this great dream come true, once again. once : “[Yapluka] is not just a financier, but a bridge between studios, licensees looking for a partner, international distribution players and creators who want to remain co-owners of what they do and maintain creative control. These talents prefer to go to players on a human scale, less bureaucratic than to the majors, because they better understand their needs.” The goal? Finance three to four films per year and “to support international and non-Franco-French projects.” An eventful year but ended on a high note. Here is Dimitri Rassam armed to conquer the world…
