Paris (AFP)
France 2 will broadcast on Monday evening the first two episodes of its spy series "Mirage", a major international co-production which is the first of "l'Alliance", a fictional partnership between France Télévisions, the Italian RAI and the German ZDF.
The series opens in Thailand, during the honeymoon of Claire, played by the French-Quebecer Marie-Josée Croze ("Les invasions barbares", "Every Thing will be fine") and Gabriel, interpreted by the actor British Clive Standen ("Vikings").
A tsunami ravages the coasts and Gabriel disappears. The action resumed 15 years later, when Claire, a computer engineer in cybersecurity, settled with her son and her new companion Lukas (played by the German Hannes Jaenicke) in Abu Dhabi.
One evening, when she is having a drink in the city, she thinks she recognizes Gabriel but he disappears before she can catch him, so she goes to look for him.
Frenchman Grégory Fitoussi ("Engrenages") completes the international cast of this series, which lasted 16 weeks between Abu Dhabi and Morocco, with a team of around twenty different nationalities.
"French authors, a Quebec director, English, French, Canadian, German, Moroccan, Emirati, etc. actors. This series is the result of a unique collaborative work", welcomes director Louis Choquette in a note of intent .
Launched in 2018, the Co-production Alliance between France Télé and its European neighbors aims to finance large-scale projects likely to reach outside Europe, a way of responding to the financial impact of Netflix-type platforms.
Several other projects have been announced as part of this alliance, including a series around Leonardo da Vinci and adaptations of the Jules Verne classic "Around the world in 80 days" and the best-seller by Guillaume Musso, "The Young Girl and the Night ".
© 2020 AFP