Quebecois actor Marc-André Grondin will star in French filmmaker Gabriel Le Bomin’s upcoming thriller Insoupçonnable (Above Suspicion) for Paris-based film company Filmes Oblige. The project is backed by StudioCanal, which backed Atom Egoyan’s Chloe.

The script was adapted by Le Bomin from the recent French bestseller. Production begins in October, with shoots in France and Switzerland.

Grondin, who exploded onto the scene with his Jutra-winning turn in C.R.A.Z.Y., plays opposite French actress Laura Smet, daughter of French legend Johnny Hallyday, as a couple who are posing as siblings as part of a scam. Smet’s character arranges to marry an older man, played by French acting eminence Charles Berling, Then the older man’s brother, played by Grégori Derangère, enters the picture.

Speaking to Playback Daily, Grondin said, ‘It’s like a detective story without the detective. The audience is the detective.’

Le Bomin’s debut film, Les fragments d’Antonin, was a finalist for the best first film prize at the 2007 Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscars.

For his part, Grondin was named most promising newcomer at this year’s Cesars. He recently wrapped production on Jean-Paul Salomé’s Chameleon and Christopher Thompson’s Bus Palladium, both of which will be in cinemas in France next year. His latest Canadian film, the thriller 5150, Rues des Ormes, is in cinemas in October.