21/03/2023 - Laetitia Masson's mini-series adaptation of DOA's novel stands out among the five titles in post-production presented by Unifrance to international buyers at Series Mania

One of France's best-known noir writers, DOA (a pseudonym referring to Roland Maté's 1950 film Dead on Arrival) began his rise to prominence by joining Gallimard's acclaimed Série noire collection and winning the Grand Prix de littérature policière in 2007 with 9/12. It is this very novel that has been adapted into a 4x52 minute mini-series, one of five titles in post-production presented today to international buyers at the Series Mania Forum as part of the 8th edition of the Coming Next from France programme orchestrated by Unifrance.

Adapted and directed by Laetitia Masson (César 1996 for Best First Film, in competition in Berlin in 2000 with Love Me and in Locarno in 2004 with Why Brazil?, Director's Award from the Serial Critics Association in 2017 for Aurore), the mini-series 9/12 looks back at the aftermath of 9/11. After France loses two barrels of extremely dangerous chemical products during a secret operation in the Middle East, various traffickers find, buy and resell them from borders to borders on behalf of terrorists planning an attack in the heart of Paris. A anti-terrorist operation is set up to dismantle and prevent a catastrophe. At the same time, somewhere, hidden and off the radar, a man is watching. He is armed and his code name is Lynx. The countdown begins: the journalists investigate, the secret services track the terrorists who are preparing themselves when all of a sudden, Lynx starts to kill. We follow his journey and that of the four other main protagonists involved in this race against time.

The cast includes Raphaël Quenard (the HP series, Final Cut [+see also:
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Coming Next from France also puts under the spotlight of the Series Mania Forum the thriller Sambre directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade (a 6x52' produced by What's Up Films for France 2 and sold by Federation Studios), the story of a serial rapist, perpetrator of some sixty crimes between the 1980s and 2018, seen through the eyes of six protagonists. The cast includes Alix Poisson, Noémie Lvovsky, Clémence Poésy, Olivier Gourmet, Jonathan Turnbull and Pauline Parigot.

The programme is completed by the crime series French Roulette - A Mother's Ordeal directed by Vincent Garenq (a 4x52' produced by Effervescence for France 2, sold by France TV Distribution and which delves into the true story of a casino in Nice in the 70s attracting all kinds of covetousness and its heiress mysteriously disappearing) and by two comedies: Love Is All by Frédéric Hazan (a 6x26' produced by Phase 4 Productions for OCS and sold by Wild Bunch TV) and Sex (re)Education by Alice Vial (10x26' produced by Next Episode for OCS and sold by Have A Good One).

(Translated from French)