Film review: Seduced and abandoned (15, 98 min)

Originally made for US cable channel HBO, Seduced And Abandoned is a revealing insight into the film industry, shot over 10 days in May 2012 as director James Toback and actor Alec Baldwin descend on the Cannes Film Festival to secure funding for an erotically charged drama set in the Middle East and inspired by Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango In Paris.

As Toback and Baldwin pitch their idea to studio executives, producers, sales agents and billionaires, they also take a trip down memory lane, recalling favourite anecdotes from their years in a business which values profit ahead of artistic invention.

Contributors include Bertolucci, James Caan, Neve Campbell, Jessica Chastain, screenwriter Diablo Cody, Francis Ford Coppola, Ryan Gosling, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Diane Kruger, Roman Polanski, Brett Ratner and Martin Scorsese.