His presence seems almost incongruous in the “Bastion” prisons, headquarters of the Paris Judicial Police (PJ), near the Porte de Clichy. On July 24, 2024, writer Nathalie Rheims, 65 years old, slender figure, perfectly groomed hair, is about to spend her first night in police custody. The daughter of an academic, a descendant of the Rothschild family, a successful author and an extremely wealthy art collector, here she is called upon to explain herself in the matter of the inheritance of her former companion Claude Langmann, known as Berri, a famous filmmaker and producer, but also a compulsive buyer of contemporary works, died in 2009. She is suspected of “breach of trust” and even “gang theft”. All at the expense of one of Berri’s sons, Thomas Langmann. Also a film producer, he filed a complaint in 2016, triggering the procedure that today catches up with Nathalie Rheims.
Cloistered in his sumptuous Parisian mansion, where The world I have met him several times, Thomas Langmann has dark circles under his eyes. His nights are haunted by dark thoughts, ruminating for years. He struggles to place the moment when the obsession arose. “They robbed me of my inheritance and before that they took advantage of my father’s weakness”he repeated over and over. One certainty: the war is now all-out between the two clans.
Thomas Langmann also knows that he will be buried in the Rassam vault – the maternal branch of his family tree – in Montfort-l’Amaury (Yvelines), the same place where his mother Anne-Marie (Claude Berri’s first wife), his brother Julien , his uncle Jean-Pierre, this line of great victims of life, whom he reveres. There is no question that he is near the Langmann family, at the place where his father was buried. At stake is a property estimated at €82 million, or even much more, as auctions can push prices up.
Thomas Langmann, the most fashionable French film producer of the 2000s (The artist, Asterix…), tries to put his thoughts in order. “Emotion blurs my words”he said, standing in front of his multiple computer screens; he absolutely needs it as he drowns himself in documents, letters, videos, audio recordings, photographs of artworks… All dedicated to his quest for revenge.
Why suddenly go to war against his half-brother, Darius Langmann – the son of Sylvie Gautrelet, who was for a time the partner of Claude Berri -, the “mother-in-law” of Nathalie Rheims or even his aunt, Arlette Langmann, after all this time everything was validated ? Thomas Langmann actually has behind him many years spent signing notary documents of all kinds without hesitation; between January 2009, the time of Claude Berri’s death, and July 2015, the outbreak of hostilities over the inheritance, he accepted all stages of this now contested succession.
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