One of the world’s most notorious art thieves has acquired a true crime documentary from Studio Canal.
The four-part series, “The Paris-Tokyo Job (or How to Rob a Yakuza),” will premiere this month at La Rochelle’s Sunny Side of the Dock Festival, and will then be shown on France’s Canal+ later this year.
The doc tells the story of Philippe “Fifi” Jamin, a flamboyant delinquent who becomes an international fugitive after his gang begins stealing and trafficking world-famous works of art, including paintings by Corot, in the 1980s, but tangles with the Japanese Yakuza in the process.
Written and directed by Jeremy Rosan (The Gold Brick) and Jérôme Piera (Cocaine Air: 30,000 Feet Smuggler) and produced by Philippe de Bourbon and Andaman Films.
“When Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, worth over 100 million euros, is spectacularly stolen, a gang becomes the prime suspect and is pursued by law enforcement agencies around the world,” the logline reads. “In the process, they would pull off one of Japan’s most daring heists, the 1986 Mitsubishi Bank robbery in Tokyo, netting them 300 million yen (almost 7 million euros today) and earning them the label ‘robber of the century’.”
The docuseries, also available as a standalone two-hour documentary, spans Tokyo, Bangkok and Mexico, combining cinematic storytelling, rare archival material, reconstructions and exclusive first-hand accounts to trace Fifi’s rise and fall as police rapidly close in on her.
The documentary will be screened as part of Studiocanal’s premium factual content. “Sunny Side of the Doc” will run from June 22nd to 27th.
