How did the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival end up in Paris?

The 22nd edition of the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival takes place exceptionally at the Folies Bergère.

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• The La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival takes place due to the health crisis in Paris from September 16 to 18.

• Due to the interruption of filming from March to June, the festival found itself "cut off from its official selection," explains to

  20 Minutes

  , festival president Stéphane Strano.

• The festival has given “carte blanche” to the channels which will present seven new series in Paris.

  It will offer an “off season” selection in December in La Rochelle.

• Eco-responsible shooting, financing of French creation through streaming platforms, professionals will reflect on "the recovery, our future and our legislative environment", summarizes the president of the festival. 

A special edition and a complete reconfiguration due to the current health context.

The La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival opens its doors this Wednesday for a special three-day edition in Paris at the Folies Bergère.

"It's like a miracle to meet for a special edition at the Folies Bergère," said Stéphane Strano, president of the La Rochelle Fiction TV Festival, at a press conference in Paris. this Wednesday morning.

“We are in an exceptional situation and we respond to it in an exceptional way,” explains Stéphane Strano to

.

How was this atypical and relocated 22nd edition of the La Rochelle event redesigned?

“This global pandemic has initiated many changes, starting with the stopping of filming from March to June.

The broadcasters, for their part, broadcast the works they had in stock, ”states Stéphane Strano.

A festival "cut off from its official selection"

Faced with the impossibility of offering a sufficiently rich, diverse and unprecedented panorama of French, French-speaking and European works, the festival found itself “cut off from its official selection”.

"We were in an extremely problematic situation, weighed down by health issues in La Rochelle which prevented us from giving the festival the face that festival-goers very much cherish", continues Stéphane Strano.

Reluctantly, the La Rochelle event as it is usually organized is therefore canceled.

"With the latest measures announced a few days ago by the prefecture, if we had maintained the event in La Rochelle, we would have been forced to cancel, therefore, no regrets," says Stéphane Strano at a press conference this Wednesday.

He added: "It was a difficult edition to prepare but we still managed to leave room for innovation with the launch of a new event: the great artistic debate," he says.

One "off season" and "seven screenings"

From December 17 to 19, the festival will offer three days of screening in La Rochelle, "off season".

“We bring to light something that was supposed to become habitual.

This year in December, because it is a special year, then, every year in April in La Rochelle with meetings between the general public, works and teams ”, rejoices Stéphane Strano.

In Paris, until September 18, "we are going to present something that is quite usual at the La Rochelle Festival, namely the white cards given to the chains".

Namely "seven screenings of unpublished series or telefilms".

TF1 will offer a preview of season 2 of

, the remake of Doctor Foster, worn by Claire Keim.

France Télévisions will offer the first two parts of Le

, a moving miniseries led by Daniel Auteuil and Victor Meutelet, a fiction freely inspired by the Christian Iacono affair, this former mayor of Vence in the Alpes-Maritimes who had been falsely accused of rape on his grand-son.

A series "labeled Séries Mania as part of a natural fraternity"

The La Rochelle TV fiction festival will present "within the framework of a natural fraternity linked to the world situation" a series "labeled Séries Mania pour Arte".

This 8x45 minute co-production takes us on a quest, in the midst of the Syrian conflict and alongside Kurdish combatants, of a young Frenchman (Félix Moati) in search of his presumed dead sister (Mélanie Thierry).

For its part, M6 will unveil

, an ambitious six-part detective miniseries carried by Marianne Denicourt, Samuel Le Bihan, Guillaume de Tonquédec, Romane Bohringer who revisits the classic by Agatha Christie.

Also on the program,

, a new original Canal + creation that follows Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel, accused of having murdered her husband on his wedding night and two OCS Signature series,

, a series without dialogue or music that follows the adventures of a prehistoric man and

, the new production by Dominique Besnehard, which follows in France in the early 1980s the launch of the first pink messaging system on Minitel.

The opportunity for the chains to present their editorial line in terms of fiction.

"We have a new president at Arte, a renewal of the presidency at France Televisions and therefore, we are waiting for announcements from them", urges Stéphane Strano.

"The entire profession needed to come together at the start of the school year"

The La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival is also a unique meeting place for French fiction professionals.

"We realized that the entire profession needed to meet again at the start of the school year," notes Stéphane Strano.

The organizers decide to organize three days of meetings, debates and screenings of events in Paris at the Folies Bergère.

Why the Folies Bergère?

“For technical, practical and attractive reasons.

The place breathes something from another time and brings up creative French memories of another time.

This means that in France, we have a heritage ”, declared Stéphane Strano during the press conference, also evoking questions of“ gauge ”.

“The Folies Bergère presented itself to us as the only possible way to imagine a meeting of professionals at the start of the school year to take stock of all the files.

The general strike of the SNCF which falls on the three days from 16 to 18 will not bother us since a large part of the profession resides in Paris ”, details

the president of the festival

at

.

And the PAF professionals will not be idle during these three days since they will discuss “how the activity has been relaunched” and “how to make up for lost time”.

But "the questions that arise go beyond the health crisis", the profession is also facing "a situation of great upheaval" with the development of streaming platforms in France, the maps of the audiovisual reform which have been reshuffled and the transposition of the AVMS directive, "which will give platforms obligations", in particular that of participating in the financing of European audiovisual creation.

"The recovery, our future and our legislative environment"

“This year, we are focused on the recovery, our future and our legislative environment.

We will try to move things forward to offer viewers beautiful French fiction, ”comments Stéphane Strano.

A major political debate around the theme: "Audiovisual creation: how to invent the world afterwards together?"

"Will bring together" around the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, all the leaders of private and public channels, professional unions and personalities such as Aurore Bergé, rapporteur of the famous audiovisual law ".

This debate will be followed by a meeting with the presidents of the regions, including Xavier Bertrand, president of Hauts-de-France and founding member of Séries Mania Lille.

"A round table on sustainable development"

The La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival also hosts the 3rd edition of the Rendez-vous de la Création Francophone, meetings which allow the promoters of a hundred projects (compared to sixty last year) of "French language series" to 'be offered "to Europe in co-production".

“The French audiovisual and cinematographic industry must be naturally ecological,” says Stéphane Strano.

The CNC will offer this Friday a round table on eco-responsible filming.

"I am very proud that an institution like the CNC is taking charge of this file," he added.

"Responsibility is also simply to ensure parity in our professions because rebuilding a world while it is in upheaval and in a health crisis is to try to do it better," he said. stressed again.

The festival therefore welcomes the Association for the Place of Women in the Media for a round table.

"These are the natural values ​​of the festival that had to be defended," he concluded.

Whatever the coronavirus, the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival is determined to prepare the French fiction of tomorrow.

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• Poitou-Charentes

• Television

• La Rochelle

• Series

• Festival

• Fiction