Presented to international journalists during the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris press-junket and selected at Séries Mania 2023, Bardot (6x52') retraces the youth of Brigitte Bardot, the free and daring woman who became a cinema icon known around the world. Pascal Breton, the series' producer and founder of Federation Studios, and Guillaume Pommier, Co-Director of International Distribution, tell us how they brought the team together for such an ambitious project, from writing to casting, and reveal an extremely promising international debut.
Unifrance: How did the idea for this series arise? Why did you choose to focus on Brigitte Bardot's life from the age of 15 to 26 in particular?
Pascal Breton: When I created Sous le soleil 25 years ago, I kept thinking about the clips of Bardot singing on the beach in Saint-Tropez to Gainsbourg's "Sous le soleil exactement." And in my casting of Sous le soleil, every year for 15 years and over 500 episodes, I was looking for who would be the new Bardot. In vain... When I created Federation 10 years ago, one of my first projects, next to The Bureau and Marseille, was to tell the story of one of the most courageous and daring women of the 20th century: Bardot. I had to start with the writing, and the trigger was my meeting Danièle Thompson and her son Christopher.
I chose Danièle, not only because she has written some of the greatest scripts in French cinema, from Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At to The Queen Margot, but also because she lived in Saint-Tropez and knew Bardot in the 1970s. We focused on Bardot at a very young age, between 15 and 26, because that's when a destiny is forged, because it becomes a universal story that touches all the young women of today, as well as all the audiences who loved Bardot in her films. The first script rang so true, and was direct like Bardot was, that we then had to find the actress.
Was it easy to find the special one who would play Bardot?
PB: We knew it was going to be very difficult, and we started casting six months earlier than usual, even though we hadn't yet found the financing for the series. We didn't even think about finding a young woman who looked like Bardot, we were looking for a free spirit, impertinence, raw talent. When Julia De Nunez appeared in the screen tests, it was obvious. The new Bardot was there, in flesh and blood, among us.
Is it a loose adaptation of Bardot's life?
PB: It's a very well documented adaptation, where every word is true or sounds true. Of course, it is inspired by all of Bardot's memoirs and all the current events of the period.
How can this period series resonate with today's audience? And more broadly, with the international public?
PB: Bardot makes us discover a free, even rebellious woman, who refuses to dress according to the standards of the time (the 1950s). She goes about barefoot, with her hair down, and wants to have the right to choose who she loves, how she experiences her sexuality, and the possibility or not to have a child if she wants and when she wants.
The series reveals a woman in love who discovers her sensuality and assumes it. A woman who hates rumors, paparazzi, the press, and the men who harass her.
The least we can say is that in 2023, she is a particularly relevant heroine!
How has the series been received internationally?
Guillaume Pommier: It has been excellent! Right from the start, we had exceptional pre-sales with Netflix, with EBU (European Broadcasting Union) broadcasters, but also in Turkey, which for the first time positioned itself very early on for one of our series, even before viewing the first episodes! We also organized a fifteen-minute screening at MIPCOM in the fall, which created ripples: we received offers the same evening. Currently, Bardot has already been sold to more than 20 territories even though the series has not yet been broadcast on France 2. Today we are delighted to see that, in addition to its success with buyers, the series is generating tremendous interest in the French and international press.
What are the main challenges you face and what particular elements add to the series' appeal?
GP: Our main problem is that in some territories, we have to face local competition, between several broadcasters interested in the series. Honestly, it's not a problem we're complaining about! As regards the strong points, we can above all mention the incredible talents that brilliantly bolster this series, whether it's the directors, the actors, be they well known or not, and Julia de Nunez, who embodies a Bardot perfectly in the air of the time: a young woman who dreams of emancipation and who doesn't care about conventions, and who speaks to young and old, because Bardot's fame is worldwide. Whatever the country, it's an easily exportable theme.
What other important series are on Federation's international sales slate?
GP: There are, of course, all those we are launching this spring: among others, in terms of fiction, Les Randonneuses, in competition at Séries Mania and which will be TF1's next blockbuster series, produced by Fanny Riedberger (Habanita Federation), the creator and producer of TF1's hit One of Us (Best Series Award at La Rochelle 2022). And The Cinderella Murder, the wonderful anthology series produced by Eyeworks for VRT and Eén.
And the series in production that we presented at the Unifrance Rendez-vous in Paris: Rematch, a premium series produced by Bruno Nahon (Unité) for ARTE France and for which we already have two strategic buyers. Shot in English with an international cast, the series tells the story of the rematch – which is to say the return match – of chess champion Garry Kasparov against the Deep Blue computer, created by IBM in 1997, a decisive moment in the early days of artificial intelligence and new technologies. We've already managed to get two very prestigious SVOD platforms on board, and they were thrilled with the scripts! And Samber, the extremely well-documented new fiction series by Jean-Xavier De Lestrade (What’s Up), which tells the story of an edifying French case that ran for 30 years until 2018, around the unfortunately universal theme of sexual violence.
On the documentary front, we're also very proud of our launches at MIPDOC: the series MH370, produced in-house by Myriam Weil in partnership with So in Love and which revisits in six episodes the mystery and theories surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers in 2014; the international co-production The Last Secrets of Humankind about prehistory in Asia; Jacques Malaterre new blockbuster film L’Odyssée de l’Espèce, produced by 10. 7 for CCTV in China, in partnership with France Télévisions and UNESCO. And there's Vatican, a seires produced by Panenka for VRT. A captivating four-year dive into the heart of the Vatican and the issues facing the Catholic Church today, for which Panenka had exclusive access to exceptional interlocutors in Rome, but also throughout the rest of the world.
