Netflix to Co-Create a Tour de France Documentary Series

Dodgy dog breeders are creating Frankenstein puppies in amateur labs to sell for up to £40,000 each.

Trinidad Barleycorn A miner in Germany’s last coal mine undergoing a gender change, a prima ballerina fighting to keep her status after becoming a mother, a repentant hooligan turned kickboxing champion, a father who fled the former Uruguayan dictatorship, rejected refugees awaiting deportation, and stuntwomen taking hit after hit for the film industry: to say that the 5th Swiss Films Previews at doc film fest Visions du Réel introduced us to strong characters is an understatement. Six promising films soon to be launched on the festival circuit and the international market were selected for the event and pitched at VdR-Industry. Five of them were directed (co-directed for “Red”) by women.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentNetflix has dropped a trailer for “The Takedown,” a cop comedy directed by “Lupin” helmer Louis Leterrier and starring Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte. The movie is a sequel to the French comedy “On The Other Side Of The Tracks.”Sy and Lafitte star as two cops with very different styles and backgrounds who are reunited for criminal investigation across France.

The debut trailer for Netflix‘s The Takedown just debuted online and it stars one of Netflix’s current big stars, Omar Sy of Lupin fame!

Netflix has dropped the first full trailer for its upcoming buddy cop action comedy, The Takedown. Lupin’s Omar Sy reteams with Laurent Lafitte in the follow-up to their 2012 On The Other Side Of The Tracks. In another reunion, Lupin director Louis Leterrier has the reins. The French film is part of Netflix’s drive to ramp up local feature productions and launches globally on the streamer on May 6. Check out the dubbed trailer above.

Lise Pedersen The French duo behind “The Last Hillbilly,” which received a Special Mention in the First Appearance category at IDFA, have been pitching their new project at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel. “A Dog’s Life” will follow the journey of six teenage girls from the juvenile detention center in Bakersfield as they embark on a rehabilitation program: for three months, the girls will attempt to mend their own lives by taking care of a rescued dog. Diane Sara Bouzgarrou told Variety how she and partner Thomas Jenkoe were inspired to pick up where they had left off with their first feature collaboration.

The comedy series On the Verge has been canceled by Netflix and Canal+ after one season, according to its creator and star, Julie Delpy.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentGaumont, the powerhouse behind “Narcos,” “Lupin” and “Barbarians,” has boarded “Le Prince,” a period mystery thriller series written by Charles den Tex and Paul de Vrijer (“Hunter Street”). Currently in development, “Le Prince” will be produced by Gaumont, as well as Stories, a label launched by France TV Distribution, and Dutch producers Paradise Media.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAlong with its premium scripted lineup, Newen Connect is launching a pair of timely investigative documentaries, “Ukraine” and “Wagner,” which are providing insight into the current war. Now filming, “Ukraine” is being co-directed by Ksenia Blochakova, the Russia correspondent of the news channel France 24, and Philippe Lagnier, a journalist working at Newen-owned production banner Capa.

New family secrets are surfacing regarding Marilyn Monroe. In a new documentary titled, "Marilyn, Her Final Secret," shows the latest peek into Monroe’s life and claims to answer one major question, the identity of her biological father.

Emiliano De Pablos Emmy Award-winning French toon production-distribution label Dandelooo has clinched a deal with pubcaster France Télévisions for Spanish award-winning 2D animated series “Jasmine & Jambo.”Targeting both upper preschoolers and parents, and bursting with musical notes and humor, “Jasmine & Jambo” is a 27-part series, produced by Barcelona-based company Teidees and Catalan broadcaster Televisió de Catalunya.Directed by Teidees co-founder Silvia Cortés, the show won best international series at the Festival Ecran Jeunesse and was nominated for the Quality in Children’s TV Worldwide award at Prix Jeunesse International.Ensuring a premier broadcast platform, “Jasmine & Jambo” will join the France Télévisions kids and family lineup, available first on streamer Okko from the Fete de la Musique – Music Day – in France on June 21. Also, onboard to bring the music series to Canadian kids are educational networks TFO and Knowledge.

Netflix is partnering with sporting events organizer A.S.O. on a documentary series about the 2022 Tour de France cycling race. With the participation of France Télévisions and produced by Quadbox, the series will follow the journey of eight teams taking part in the most world’s most challenging bike race.

Marta Balaga Netflix and Arte’s musical show “Le Monde de Demain” (“The World of Tomorrow”) took the top prize in the International Competition of television festival Series Mania at the event’s awards ceremony Friday.The series, created by Katell Quillévéré, Hélier Cisterne – both also directing – Vincent Poymiro and David Elkaïm, takes a look at the birth of the French hip-hop movement in the 1980s. Made with the collaboration of Laurent Rigoulet and the participation of Kool Shen, JoeyStarr and DJ Détonateur S, it was described by the organizers as “a personal chronicle about a Parisian suburban youth reaching adulthood, claiming its own space in a new France, a country to reinvent.” In the acting categories, Michelle De Swarte was noticed for her role in the U.K.’s “The Baby,” produced by Sky, HBO and OCS, while Israeli actor Yehuda Levi impressed the jurors with his performance in “Fire Dance,” a Yes TV, Firma Productions and Kuma Studios production about an 18-year-old girl falling for a much-older married son of their ultra-Orthodox community’s leader.“He had to be charismatic in a manly way,” helmer Rama Burshtein-Shai told Variety ahead of the series’ premiere.“Levi, a very big star here in Israel, is so talented.

The head of France Télévisions Delphine Ernotte Cunci has said she “wouldn’t personally have applied censorship” to Russian news networks.

Guy Lodge Film CriticA decade ago, when his documentary “How to Survive a Plague” rode a wave of festival acclaim to an Oscar nomination, journalist-turned-filmmaker David France probably didn’t imagine that a similarly titled quasi-sequel was in the cards. A superb overview of the early years of HIV-AIDS activism in the face of political indifference and ineptitude — ultimately leading to game-changing medication and pharmaceutical policy change — that film has given France a solid grounding for another feature-length study of very different if somewhat comparable global health crisis, centered on the COVID-19 pandemic and the extraordinarily accelerated scientific race for a solution.Researched and assembled with his characteristic intelligence and thoroughness, “How to Survive a Pandemic” serves as both a valuable potted history of the last two years of medical tumult and relief, and a critical progress report marking work yet to be done. Hardly the first high-profile documentary on the pandemic, but the most substantial yet to focus specifically on the trajectory of the vaccine, France’s film is assured a receptive audience when it bows on HBO next week, following docfest premiere slots in Thessaloniki and Copenhagen.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentUGC, the long-running French film studio whose biggest hits include “Amelie Poulain,” has successful branched into TV series by acquiring stakes in a flurry of talent-driven production companies such as Itineraire Productions (“HPI”) and Headline Pictures (“Call My Agent!’s” British remake) in the U.K.Opting for a different approach to Gaumont’s or large media groups like Mediawan, the company has been building its label UGC Series as a coalition of independently-ran production companies under the leadership of Laurence Lenica, a veteran UGC executive, and Franck Calderon, a well-known writer, producer and former boss of TF1 Productions.So far, UGC Series comprises six banners. Along with Headline Pictures and Itineraire Productions, these include Henri Debeurne’s Next Episode whose credits take in “Christmas Flow” for Netflix and “J’ai tué mon mari” for NBCU and TF1; UGC Fiction, which Calderon is leading with Karine Evrard and Sophie Exbrayat, and which has delivered the ratings hit ”Jacqueline Sauvage, It was Him or Me”, and most recently “La Traque” for TF1.

It’s Bridgerton premiere week and the show will be debuting on Netflix in just a matter of hours!!

Frank Doelger, who was an executive producer on Game Of Thrones between 2011 and 2019, provided an update on his new company in Germany during a Series Mania panel today.

If you're wondering what's coming up on the TV schedule this week, Tuesday is set to be a busy evening across the broadcasting channels with something to watch for everyone. There's a couple of new shows joining the line-up but a few programmes will also be concluding. We've selected five TV highlights for Tuesday, March 22, below but don't forget there is plenty more to watch.