It’s been almost 240 years since France started its very first Revolution. But fear not, French TV producers still have what it takes to bring yet another one to modern fiction, blending hints of past, present, and future.
From Toronto-bound “Alice” recently boarded by SND to France Télévisions genre-bending thriller “Swapped” and Wild Bunch‘s latest adaptation of Stendhal’s classic “The Red and the Black,” premium Gallic period dramas are spearheading this year’s slate at the Unifrance Rendez-vous, set in the Normandy coastal town setting of Le Havre.
France TV Distribution (FTD), who sold the 2024 limited series “The Huguenots” to 29 territories (including a major partnership with HBO Max in France and Belgium) and brought “George: Untamed Spirit” to Mipcom the same year, is at the heart of this rising tide. “We’ve always been tied to period dramas,” says Julia Schulte, SVP International Sales. “and what we are now witnessing is a true comeback, a hunger for premium period dramas with high production value from distributors and buyers across Europe and beyond.”
Diana Bartha, Head of Sales & Acquisitions at Wild Bunch, shares this enthusiasm. “Historical fiction has always been a relatively safe and enduring proposition,” she adds. “It has a long shelf life, travels well across cultures, and connects with something universal: our appetite for storytelling and our fascination with the past. In an increasingly competitive distribution market, these qualities make historical fiction particularly attractive to producers and broadcasters.”
