French hyphenate Agnès Jaoui is currently in preproduction on her third feature as an actress-writer-director, after Le goût des autres (The Taste of Others) and Comme une image (Look at Me). The project is called Parlez-moi de la pluie (lit. Tell Me About the Rain) and, like her previous two films as a director, was co-written by Jean-Pierre Bacri, who will also co-star again. French-Moroccan actor Jamel Debbouze has also joined the cast. Jamel, as he commonly known in France, started his career as a stand-up comedian but has lately worked on several serious acting projects including Luc Besson's Angel-A, in which he played a suicidal man, and Indigènes (Days of Glory), the WWII drama about  French soldiers from North Africa that was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar and for which the male cast won the Best Actor prize at Cannes last year. 

Jamel remains most well-known abroad for his role as the sweet greengrocer's aide in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain and his role as the scheming architect in the live-action Astérix et Obélix: mission Cléopâtre. He has just wrapped the third part in the Astérix series, Astérix aux jeux Olympiques (Asterix at the Olympic Games), which is expected to be one of the continental blockbusters in the summer of 2008. His director's last on-screen role was in 2005's WWII drama La maison de Nina (lit. Nina's House). Jaoui has since released her first musical album Canta and has done a concert tour. She played a singing instructor in Comme une image and Parlez-moi de la pluie will also has musical elements; the title is a line from a song by George Brassens. Not much is known about the actual story of the film other than that Jaoui will be playing a politician and that the film will follow a group of characters, much like in her previous efforts. Shooting is scheduled to start on August 20, probably in the South of France.

(source: Allocine, photo: Agnès Jaoui in La maison de Nina, (c) TFM distribution, 2005)