INTERVIEW
How to find heirs? Every Monday evening for three weeks, France 3 broadcasts two episodes of Heir Search, a documentary series that follows the work of genealogists and in which we discover that it sometimes takes long research to find the heirs. Guests of Culture Médias on Europe 1 Antoine Baldassari, the director of the program and Damien Gérard, one of the genealogists of the documentary, returned to the content of this unpublished series.
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Tonight, three family stories will be revealed on screen. Family stories, "which also have a universal side", explains Antoine Baldassari: "We are also in our family stories for all of us". "It also tells a sociological photo of a time when we are interested in the 50s or the war", continues the director. For example, one of the genealogists followed by the cameras of France 3 had to go to Poland then to the United States to find the heirs of Sarah, survivor of the Second World War and deceased widowed and childless.
"We come out impacted by a file like that"
"It takes us into the great history," says Antoine Baldassari. Because if some inheritances are ordinary, others make it possible to realize that "families have been broken up by extraordinary events". Damien Gérard, for example, turned the lives of the two heirs upside down when he found them. In Sarthe, Michel and Bruno, two brothers who did not know their father because he had left home when they were very young, believed him dead for twenty-five years. However, the latter has only been dead for a year and lived 50 km from their home.
"These are difficult files and we come out impacted by a file like that", comments the genealogist. "We feel responsible for their stories since we reveal something very important to them. It will be part of the files that will remain in my life as a genealogist," says Damien Gérard.
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"Thanks to the camera, some heirs agreed to meet"
"He and his colleagues were great in this story because we had to work together hand in hand, we really trust each other," explains Antoine Baldassari. "We took a lot of time because it took the genealogists to make contact with the families and then we re-establish contact and establish trust with these people, because it is not easy to reveal a family secret in front of a camera, ”explains the director.
But in the end, the result was worth it. "Television is fair when it conveys values and brings us back to basics", believes Antoine Baldassari. "Thanks to the camera, some heirs have agreed to meet and we realize that there is a story that is revealed before our eyes", he rejoices.
Research heirs, a new documentary series scheduled on France 3 from this Monday, August 17, at 9:05 p.m.