News

The BBC has acquired French crime thriller Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime, which follows the true story of one of France’s most prolific sexual predators.

The six-part series looks at a string of sexual assaults in northern France in the late 1980s, along the same road by the Sambre river. As the police fail to get to grip with the extent of the attacks or make a connection between cases, it is only 30 years later when a culprit is caught.

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind docuseries The Staircase and the drama Laetitia, recounts the legal case of a serial rapist. The cast includes Alix Poisson (The Returned, Six Women), Clémence Poesy (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Tenet), Olivier Gourmet (Oussekine, La Promesse), Noémie Lvovsky (Camille Rewinds, Farewell, My Queen), Jonathan Turnbull (Soldiers) and Pauline Parigot (Soldiers, Hpi).

The show follows the progression of the investigation and its...

The BBC has picked up Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s TV thriller Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime.

Starring Alix Poisson and Clémence Poesy, the series is based on true events and follows the extraordinary legal case of a serial rapist who attacked women across three decades in the same location. The France Télévisions thriller came fresh off the back of the smash success of French movie Anatomy of a Fall.

Produced by Federation Studios, Sambre starts in Northern France in the late 1980s, where women are being sexually assaulted along the same road by the Sambre river, with attacks taking place early mornings and in a similar style. The justice system is overwhelmed by the accumulating cases. It will take 30 years to catch a man, who never stopped attacking women and is responsible for at least 54 cases of rape or sexual assault,...

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind docuseries “The Staircase,” has once again struck a chord with “Samber,” a limited series about a French serial rapist that explores the damages of sexual violence against women and children.

“Samber,” a six-part thriller series directed by de Lestrade, charts the true case of Dino Scala, a seemingly ordinary family man who sexually assaulted and raped more than 50 women and minors over three decades in Northeastern France. In spite of several victims filing complaints, Scala was able to slip through the cracks of France’s judicial system and benefited from a complacent stance toward sexual abuses. He was eventually arrested in February 2018 and found guilty of 17 rapes, 12 attempted rapes and 27 sexual assaults or attempts. In June 2022, Scala was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Represented in international markets by Federation Studios, the six-part series has captured the zeitgeist in France, which is undergoing a...

MaryAnn’s quick take… The chemistry of two formidable actresses fuels an extraordinary yet subtle clash in a nuanced, unsentimental story about how women’s friendships shape our lives. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for stories about women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Huh. French drama The Midwife is almost the same movie as American indie The Last Word, in thematic terms if not down to the small details: an older, rather obnoxious woman and a younger one who needs a bit of a boot in the ass strike up a friendship, to the eventually betterment of both of them, though not after a rocky ride. I watched both films almost back to back, and I’m glad this one came second, because it washed away the terrible taste the first one left. Midwife gets right everything...

MaryAnn’s quick take… The chemistry of two formidable actresses fuels an extraordinary yet subtle clash in a nuanced, unsentimental story about how women’s friendships shape our lives. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for stories about women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Huh. French drama The Midwife is almost the same movie as American indie The Last Word, in thematic terms if not down to the small details: an older, rather obnoxious woman and a younger one who needs a bit of a boot in the ass strike up a friendship, to the eventually betterment of both of them, though not after a rocky ride. I watched both films almost back to back, and I’m glad this one came second, because it washed away the terrible taste the first one left. Midwife gets right everything...