'Welcome to New York' will surprise fans: Abel Ferrara

Director Abel Ferrara thinks movie fans will be surprised by new film "Welcome to New York", because it is not a documentary-style piece.

The flick has been inspired by the downfall of Dominique Strauss-Khan, the French economist and politician, who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel employee in 2011, but Ferrara warned moviegoers not to expect a documentary-like production.

''In the beginning when we were screening it, I started sensing people were coming thinking it was going to be a documentary on Strauss-Khan. And the film is not a documentary - this is a film made by me and my guys, with Gerard [Depardieu] and Jacqueline [Bisset] in it. And that's a separate entity," contactmusic.com quoted Ferrara as saying.

''So it needed Gerard saying, very straight up, 'I'm not playing the guy, because I don't respect the guy.' Ya dig? What you're seeing is a performance. You come here to watch the Dominique Strauss-Khan story, you're coming to the wrong f*****g theatre. You'd better leave now," he added.

The film is strongly disliked by Anne Sinclair, who was Strauss-Khan's wife at the time of the scandal.