In "Celebrity Hunted", eight stars play giant hide and seek

• Amazon Prime Video offers from this Friday, October 29 the first three episodes of 

  Celebrity Hunted

  .

• In this program, four pairs of two celebrities must disappear without leaving a trace and try to escape cybersecurity experts.

• Florent and Laure Manaudou, as well as Squeezie and Seb tell 

  20 Minutes 

  behind the scenes of their participation.

Paris, place du Trocadéro.

The day has barely dawned in the capital when eight celebrities come out, bundled up under their hoods.

Tension music, countdown on the Eiffel Tower, frightening voiceover, they all line up, facing the camera, before the start of

is given.

That's it, the counter displays "00: 00".

The four pairs go in an opposite direction.

From that point on, the stars of the program have ten days to go on the run without ever getting caught by officers at headquarters.

A shoot in the making

The sportsmen Laure and Florent Manaudou, the youtubers Squeezie and Seb, the actors Franck Gastambide and Ramzy Bedia, as well as the artists Dadju and Darcy have all agreed to put an end to their daily life for the time of the Amazon Prime Video show, toured last March. "We were offered it at the end of last year but I was pregnant so I had trouble projecting myself", Laure Manaudou tells

. Fortunately, the swimmer was able to count on her brother who worked out the plan for their escape. “I had taken a map of France but I didn't know where we were going to arrive. I tried to move a little every day, to find connections everywhere and little by little, we refined the plan, ”he says. On the ninth day, the players still in competition must imperatively reach a specific exfiltration site, whatever their current position.

Taking part in

is obviously

any other TV show shoot.

"We had all the same written the whole run, seen everything that was possible to do, contacted people potentially available or not," lists Seb.

“We did the entire roadmap of our run upstream and after, day 1, it started, we followed everything we had planned to do except a few times when we changed things at the last minute because we were becoming paranoid, ”Squeezie said.

Unable to access public surveillance cameras

At their heels, the members of the headquarters follow the celebrities.

Throughout the episodes, we discover CCTV images of the streets of Paris or the shopping areas they cross.

From the first minutes of the program, spectators are informed that the means usually made available to the police during investigations have been reconstituted.

“French law prohibits an audiovisual production from accessing public surveillance cameras,” replies Amazon.

The film crew who followed a pair was ahead of them by a few minutes in order to install a GoPro camera at an ATM, a toll booth or a street corner where a camera was located.

This allowed them to then provide, and only if HQ requested, re-enactment footage.

"

The eight personalities taking part in the competition were also fighting against invisible enemies.

None of them really knew how the HQ worked, how many people were behind them, or whether they were close or not.

However, cybersecurity experts, profiling and military intelligence professionals were working from Paris to track them down.

"We quickly became paranoid because they are dressed in civilian clothes so we could see them at any time," reports Laure Manaudou.

The moment HQ agents touch a celebrity, they are eliminated from the game.

Fame, advantage or disadvantage?

The stars of

, considered fugitive, were accompanied by a cameraman and a reporter.

Obviously, this attracts the eye of onlookers but it was not the only handicap with which the participants started.

Regarding the fame, Squeezie reports that "it's a burden because people can help you but there are also others who can recognize you and give clues to investigators telling them that they have us. seen at such and such a place.

"

On the other hand, it can be rare to meet personalities in remote corners of the French countryside.

When inhabitants meet them, a trace is often quickly left on the Internet, "in" I saw him in such and such a city, what is he doing there? "

”Squeezie explains.

"When we are known, we can also make connections fairly quickly and the HQ does not necessarily know that we can go to these people, tell them the concept of the show and that they can welcome us", testifies Florent Manaudou who therefore sees notoriety as an advantage in this competition.

The proof of this assertion will perhaps be provided at the end of the six episodes of the program, of which only the first three are available for the moment.

The last three will follow on November 5.

Movie theater

"Bingo Hell", "The Manor", "Black as Night" ... Welcome to the Blumhouse, the house of horrors from Prime Video

Culture

"Never show that to anyone": Twenty years of Orelsan told by his brother on Amazon Prime Video

• Florent Manaudou

• 20 minutes video

• Squeezie

• Laure Manaudou

• Amazon Prime Video