Franco-American actor-director Jean-Marc Barr will confirm his hyphenate status this summer when he helms his second picture, Too Much Flesh, according to Gallic sales house TF1 International. The English-lingo $1.5 million pic will roll in early August in Illinois.

The cast includes Barr, Rosanna Arquette and French sensation Elodie Bouchez, who shared best actress honours at last year's Cannes. Arquette previously worked with Barr in his debut, The Big Blue, while Bouchez recently starred in Barr's first feature as director, Lovers. Lovers is screening here in Cannes and has just been officially classified as the first French DOGMA film. Both Barr films are being sold by TF1 International.

Flesh, which is to be co-scripted, co-directed and co-produced by Pascal Arnold, is "a sly satire about America", says Massimo Seidel, co-productions and acquisitions topper at TF1 Int'l. The story follows a simple and sexually naive man whose first erotic encounter reveals the fact that he is extremely well endowed, thus setting up the rest of the film. The pic is to be co-produced by TF1 and possibly Canal Plus, in association with FilmFour, according to Seidel.

Seidel is bullish on the film and on Barr himself: "We did a lot of pre-sales on Lovers. Jean-Marc only had $1 million on that one; here he has a bit more but he does a really good job with almost nothing."

Seidel tells Moving Pictures that he, together with his team at TF1 Int'l, are building an ambitious new strategy to see the company move forward and continue to compete strongly on the global scene - one which entails developing "one or two major studio deals and mainstream, youth and niche projects along with high-end French films" for a total of about 12-15 pictures a year.

Indeed, it looks like TF1 Int'l is gearing up to take another gamble on a big project from a US major. In 1995 they bet and won when they put some coin into Martin Scorsese's Casino. Seidel won't be led as to what their next Stateside project is likely to be, but admits there are advanced discussions on the topic.

On the mainstream side, upcoming is the $20 million Under Suspicion, which Seidel says will end up being at least 85% financed in pre-sales. Also recently announced is the $22 million The Golden Bowl from director James Ivory.

In the youth market, TF1 has done a split deal on the slasher pic Cut with Australia's Beyond Films. Seidel says he is sure TF1's relationship with the producers down-under will continue and may even take the form of a formal deal. The same goes for Alliance, with whom TF1 will work on 15 Moments, a film by Denys Arcand, helmer of Love And Human Remains. The pic is based on the rise and fall of a model and will be "Alliance's prestige item for Cannes next year" according to Seidel. Gallic producer Philippe Carcassonne is a minority co-producer with France, TF1 has taken Italy.

If things go well on 15 Moments, Carcassonne and TF1 could look to do a formal deal in the future which may see TF1 end up being the sales house that takes Brit director Michael Radford's latest, The Swedish Cavalier. Cavalier is a co-prod from Carcassonne and Jean-Louis Livi who already has a deal with TF1 - the film has been a tough sell.

Other projects include two English-language pics, the $15 million In Search Of The Assassin, written by Peter Flannery (a "hot young Australian director" is currently being courted), and the $12 million Florentine, in association with Renaissance Films, which is being scripted by Mark Mills and is likely to fall under TF1's new deal with Film Four.

"We want to go in a different direction, slowly," says Seidel. "We've already moved out of the mould of doing 100% French films and are getting better while cleaning up our act." Nancy Tartaglione