Audrey Fleurot

Events

A fourth Totally Serialized is coming to London in January

16 December 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Workingirls

Un village français

Paris

Lascars

Caroline Proust

Hey everyone – remember the first three Totally Serialized (one, two, three)? Well, the fourth one’s coming next month…

Totally Serialized – Season 4
29 – 31 January 2015 at Ciné Lumière

From 29 to 31 January, Ciné Lumière will hold the 4th edition of Totally Serialized, the one and only TV series festival in London. Aimed to promote and improve collaboration between the UK and France, it will showcase the best of new productions from both sides of the Channel.

Audiences will get a chance to attend exceptional preview screenings and meet creators and actors of their cult TV series.

Those last years of production have proven that TV series are more creative than ever. And more recently, the British TV industry has broken down frontiers, with international buyers moving away from a remake-centred strategy and now broadcasting the original series with subtitles. French shows such as The Returned, Braquo, Spiral, Hard and Maison Close from the French Pay TV CANAL+ have benefited from this shift, and have proven to be a success on Channel 4, FX, BBC Four and Sky Arts respectively. Just recently, Channel 4 acquired Witnesses, another French series. One of the aims of the festival is to encourage this trend.

A dedicated industry programme is organised in association with Creative Europe Desk UK and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) on 29 & 30 January aiming to foster international exchanges and co-productions in order to meet the growing demand for high-quality European TV drama. Various aspects of the constantly-evolving field of TV series, including producing, screenwriting, and financing will be covered.

The festival opening ceremony followed by an industry cocktail is organised with CANAL+.

In partnership with the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD), British and French TV writers will gather and discuss the art of TV writing on 30 January while networking events will accompany this two-day programme. The festival also launches a speed-dating meeting between selected French and British producers organised with Europe Creative Desk MEDIA France and Ile de France Film Commission.

Festival highlights include a preview of award-winning writer Russell T. Davies’ Banana, courtesy of E4 (Channel 4) in the presence of members of the cast and crew.

Spiral enthusiasts are in for a treat as several events will be dedicated to this dark and labyrinthine Parisian crime drama. While Series 5 will be showing on BBC Four, the CANAL + CREATION ORIGINALE series will be unravelled by its screenwriter Anne Landois in a special screening of episode 1 at Ciné Lumière on 29 January. In addition, Caroline Proust, who plays Captain Laure Berthaud will give a masterclass where Spiral’s fans will learn behind-the-scene stories on 31 January. The UK premiere of Paris, a mini-series from the team behind Spiral, will top it all.

Thrillers are a strong strand in this year’s festival as we will also screen the UK Premiere of Jean-Christophe Grangé’s The Passenger with actor Jean-Hugues Anglade (Braquo). and host a masterclass with Tony Grisoni in which he will decrypt the creative process behind the acclaimed Channel 4 TV show Southcliffe.

This year’s festival will be a platform for new talent with a BAFTA masterclass on ‘Breaking and entering TV Screenwriting’ for budding writers, a marathon of new French TV comedies and fresh out of French animation schools directors with En sortant de l’école, a mini series based on Jacques Prévert’s poems.

After the jump, the programme of public events (ie the ones you can attend if you don’t work in TV). And to find out more or book tickets, visit the Totally Serialized web site

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Events

A third Totally Serialized is coming to London in January

16 December 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Village Francais

Remember the first two Totally Serialized (one, two)? Well, the third one’s coming next month…

Totally Serialized – Season 3
16 – 19 January 2014 at Ciné Lumière

From 16 to 19 January 2014, Ciné Lumière will hold the third edition of Totally Serialized, London’s favourite TV series festival. It will showcase the best of new productions from both sides of the Channel as well as European TV series. Audiences can enjoy their favourite shows on the big screen (Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Returned, My Mad Fat Diary) attend premieres of tomorrow’s cult series and meet the creators during Q&As and masterclasses.

The rise of TV shows in the past few years has been meteoric, with clunky acting, minimal plotlines and pre-recorded laughter replaced by multimillion-dollar productions starring A-list actors, with staggering special effects, and the finest writers churning out complex stories and incisive dialogue designed to keep the viewer hooked. An even more recent development in the British TV industry has been the breaking down of frontiers, with international buyers moving away from a remake-centred strategy and now broadcasting the original series with subtitles. French shows such as The Returned, Braquo, Spiral, Hard and Maison Close have benefited from this shift, and have proven to be a success on Channel 4, FX, BBC Four and Sky Arts respectively. One of the aims of this festival is to encourage this trend by showcasing tomorrow’s cult series.

TV professionals will get a chance to participate in an industry event dealing with various aspects of the constantly-evolving field of TV series, including producing, screenwriting, and financing, as well as case study of The Tunnel featuring writer Ben Richards amongst others. There will also be networking opportunities to allow ideas and future collaborations to flourish. The general public can also have a peek at what goes on behind the scenes with our Craft Masterclass on women and TV writing, organised in collaboration with BAFTA, during which leading screenwriters such as Virginie Brac (Spiral), Paula Milne (The Politician’s Husband, White Heat, Small Island) and Emma Reeves (The Dumping Ground, Young Dracula) will examine women’s contributions to screenwriting and the particular obstacles they face.

This masterclass will be a central part of our Leading Ladies strand, which will also include UK premieres of the French hit Mafiosa in the presence of director Pierre Leccia, and of season 2 of My Mad Fat Diary, in the presence of Sharon Rooney and writer Tom Bidwell. Our other highlight will be on political thrillers, with three gripping UK premieres on Sunday 19 January: the Belgian Salamander, recently acquired by BBC Four for its Saturday Night Slot; the Danish hit The Protectors, an Emmy Award-winning offering of Nordic noir which is set to delight fans of Borgen and The Killing; and the French Les Anonymes by Pierre Schoeller (The Minister), who will be here for a Q&A.

Following the success of our UK premiere of The Returned in last year’s edition of Totally Serialized, we are pleased to host a marathon of the full first season of the now Emmy-awarded French show as part of our Saturday Fright Night, which will also feature a 10th anniversary screening of all the episodes of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – with a Q&A with Matthew Holness – and a zombie party. For those who prefer laughter to chills, our Cult Comedy Marathon will showcase the best comedies from both sides of the Channel.

Totally Serialized is curated by Lorraine Sullivan and organised by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, in association with: SACD, La Culture Copie Privée, MediaDesk UK, Canal+, BAFTA, TV France International, France 24 and Ile de France Film Commission.

Programme after the jump and even more details at the Totally Serialized web site.

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French TV

Review: Engrenages (Spiral) 4×9-4×12 (France: Canal+; UK: BBC Four)

27 March 2013 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

In France: Canal+. Aired last autumn
In the UK: Saturday 9/16 March, 9pm, BBC4

Blimey. We’re already done. In fact, we were done a week ago, but because I’ve been a tad busy, finding the time to watch and review four whole episodes of Spiral after a week away proved a lot harder than I thought (note to BBC4: next time, show one episode a week if you want me to review them on time. There, I’m sure that will affect their scheduling policy). Plus there’s only four of you reading these things anymore, now the BBC has stopped linking back to blogs that link to them. Ho hum.

Anyway, let’s go in and discuss suicide, terrorists, death, counselling (and lack thereof) and abusive lovers. Who says the French are culturally pre-disposed to misery, when they have rolicking good fun like this?

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French TV

Review: Engrenages (Spiral) 4×1-4×2 (France: Canal+; UK: BBC Four)

12 February 2013 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

In France: Last autumn, Canal+
In the UK: Saturday 9 February, 9pm, BBC Four

Screw The Shield, The Killing and all the others. In the last decade, there have been, as all right-thinking people know, precisely two cop shows in the world that have been truly excellent and have mattered in any real sense. The first, of course, is The Wire. The second, far lesser known show, is France’s Engrenages aka Spiral. The two are similar, comparable even, in that they both try to show their own country’s native justice system, warts and all, while shining a spotlight into the recesses of society, all with as little narrative artifice as is possible in a watchable TV show.

Thankfully, even though The Wire has ceased to be, Canal+ in France – together with some lovely co-funding money from BBC4 – have kept Engrenages going, and judging by the first two episodes of the new season, one could even say “from strength to strength” because for my money, this is at least as good as the show’s finest season opener in terms of narrative and perception, yet with a confidence that only comes with age… and the knowledge that because you are the best, you can do what you like at the pace that you like it.

When last we left our heroes and heroines – perhaps one should say ‘heroes’ and ‘heroines’, because no one in Engrenages is truly good, although there’s a fair few evil doers along the way – things were going semi-pear shaped for everyone. Over-committed police captain Laure (Caroline Proust) was off murdering serial killers, amoral lawyer Josephine Karlsson (Audrey Fleurot) was signing a deal with the devil so she could save her business partner and secret love, Pierre (the UK’s favourite French actor, Grégory Fitoussi, currently in ITV’s Mr Selfridge), and ambiguous yet moral Judge Roban (Philippe Duclos) was monologuing his way into enforced retirement, thanks to Sarkozy’s attempts to reform the French legal system.

In series four, as is tradition, we return not long after those events and yet everything’s changed in quite surprising ways. While it’s not all 100% tickedy boo, some things appear to be changing for the better for once. Karlsson may have to deal with some dodgy Russian mob types, but Pierre’s got her back for a change and they’re flirting at each other like crazy; Laure may be under investigation but she’s finally getting her love life sorted and her new boss seems quite nice. Okay, so Judge Roban is off contemplating his navel somewhere and Gilou (Thierry Godard) is still self-destructing like crazy, but plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as they say.

And then up pop some leftie students, ready to party like it’s 1968, ready to save hapless souls from France’s oppressive immigration system and capitalism in general. Welcome back, Engrenages. How we missed you. Here’s a trailer (with the usual suspiciously mistranslated English subtitles), plus the first few minutes in French:

Veuillez installer Flash Player pour lire la vidéo

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Film

Google will now calculate an actor’s Bacon number for you

13 September 2012 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Kevin Bacon

Everyone knows about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon by now. In case you’re not everyone, here’s how it works. The theory is that everyone in the world (well, actors at least) is separated by no more than six other actors from Kevin Bacon. The number of degrees of separation of that actor from Kevin Bacon gives you that actor’s ‘Bacon number’. So if the actor is in a movie with Kevin Bacon, their Bacon number is 1; if the actor appears in a movie with someone who’s been in a movie with Kevin Bacon, their Bacon number is 2; and so on.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has become a party game for film nerds but now Google has ruined it for everyone who has a smartphone. All you now have to do is type “Bacon number” followed by the actor’s name and Google will not only tell you the Bacon number of that person, it’ll also tell you how it worked out that number.

As a test, I typed in the names of some this ere blog’s favourite actors. Here are their Bacon numbers according to Google – turns out they’re all twos, apart from Audrey Fleurot:

  • Ali Larter: 2
    Ali Larter and Bruce McGill appeared in Obsessed
    Bruce McGill and Kevin Bacon appeared in National Lampoon’s Animal House
  • Joanna Page: 2
    Joanna Page and January Jones appeared in Love Actually
    January Jones and Kevin Bacon appeared in X-Men: First Class
  • David Tennant: 2
    David Tennant and James McAvoy appeared in Bright Young Things
    James McAvoy and Kevin Bacon appeared in X-Men: First Class.
  • Richard Armitage: 2
    Richard Armitage and Elijah Wood appeared in The Hobbit: Part 1
    Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon appeared in Beyond All Boundaries.
  • Amber Heard: 2
    Amber Heard and Emma Stone appeared in Zombieland
    Emma Stone and Kevin Bacon appeared in Crazy, Stupid, Love.
  • Scarlett Johansson: 2
    Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray appeared in Lost in Translation
    Bill Murray and Kevin Bacon appeared in Wild Things.
  • Audrey Fleurot: 3
    Audrey Fleurot and Omar Sy appeared in Intouchables
    Omar Sy and Robert De Niro appeared in Micmacs
    Robert De Niro and Kevin Bacon appeared in Sleepers.

Give it a try with some of your favourites and let us know the answers below.