07/04/2023 - 17 projects took part last year in the two workshops aimed at exploring and building a series concept; applications are open for the next edition of the programme

"It’s about identifying talents, contributing to a renewal in creative approaches and beginning lasting relations with auteurs. The job of screenwriter is flourishing. Producers still maintain a pivotal role, but broadcasters must also accompany auteurs to place them at the centre of the creative process" underlines Olivier Wotling, Fiction director at Arte France. "We must overcome the romantic idea of the auteur, which is still very present in France, and offer a model for creation that is open, playful, and which favours collaborations. Before writing, one needs to elaborate, explore, try, test things out..." adds Antoine Le Bos, founder and artistic director of Le Groupe Ouest. For four years, the fiction unit of Arte France and Le Groupe Ouest have collaborated to offer Une Expérience Sérielle, two lab workshops dedicated to series creation: Exploring a series concept, and Building a series concept.

Two sessions took place in 2022, each consisting of two times one week of immersion in Finistere, and the 17 projects by 21 auteurs are detailed in a book you can download here.

In "Exploring a series concept", Kallisté by Charlotte Arrighi de Casanova takes place in contemporary Corsica and focuses on three women from the same family, 499 by Simonetta Greggio tells of a dangerous investigation led by a journalist working for a Sicilian daily, De mémoire by Cristina Pinheiro centres on a promising swimmer suffering from a genetic disease and searching for her hereditary baggage, which leads her to the ghosts of the night of 17 October 1961 in Paris, Hector by K Gloire Savula Mbongo tells the surprising story of the professional rise of a social class outsider, and Terre promise by Thibaut Villar explores explores the topic of the return to nature through two brothers with very different visions of the defense of the environment.

In a fantasy register, Imago by Sandrine Le Coustumer looks at, among other things, the complex mother/daughter relationship through a story of strange symptoms, La Collecte by Thomas Mauceri (co-written with Maël Diraison) takes place in a privatised France where euthanasia has become compulsory for any person deemed unfit, Loaded by Jean-Charles Paugam centres on a young telecommunications researcher who accidentally discovers the wavelengths of happiness, and Victoire by Anne Schmauch follows a young woman looking for her brother at Paris’ gates and who infiltrates a gang of wreckers who feed a maleficent beast.

"Building a series concept" allowed Margot Coursaget to work on Arielle, a tale about mermaids and the story of a mutating young woman, while Cédriane Fossat worked on Smile, a paranoid thriller about a couple of political enemies whose relation relies on a fool’s game. Organique by Juliette Fourniez-Motta centres on an agronomist who moves to an abandoned farm where worrying supernatural events occur, Somolus by Joris Goulenok is set in the heart of a sect cut off from the rest of the world in a water park for generations, while À flot by Louise Silverio (co-written with Médéric de Watteville) tells of the misadventures of a kind grandmother who sets foot on a gigantic cruiseship where a band of septuagenarians live their lives to the maximum.

Le Dernier Damel by Alassane Sy is set in West Africa, in the early 19th century, where the fight between two cousin princes upsets the kingdom and opens the region to colonisers. Couvre-feu by Stéphane Vuillet (co-written by Marion Brunet and Sandra Fassio) begins in a confined world where a middle class family sees its world shattered following a party that attracts unprecedented police violence. Finally, the romantic dramedy Si doux sera mon désir by Tatiana Werner questions female desire in the post-MeToo era.

The deadline to apply is 23 April 2023 for the next "Exploring a series concept" workshop (click here to apply) and 4 September 2023 for the next "Building a series concept" workshop (details here).

(Translated from French)