New creation from France Télévisions! Entitled La Peste (The Plague), this event series will be broadcast in prime time on France 2 from Monday, March 4, 2024. As its name suggests, La P este is an adaptation of the famous literary work of the same name byAlbert Camus, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Published in 1947, the novel by the famous French writer, philosopher and militant journalist was an instant publishing success in France and abroad, winning the Prix des Critiques in the year of its publication.
More than 75 years after its release, La Peste is back on everyone's lips, thanks to this new France Télévisions series. However, the screenwriters have come up with an original adaptation freely inspired by the novel by Albert Camus. " We were immediately attracted by the decision of the talented screenwriting duo Gilles Taurand and Georges-Marc Benamou to set the plot in a story of anticipation, offering an original re-reading of this famous seminal novel," explained Anne Holmes, Director of French Fiction at France Télévisions, in a press release issued on February 13.
While the action of the novel takes place in the mid-1940s, the series is set in 2030, creating a dystopian fiction that may well surprise viewers. " It's in the last paragraph of the novel that we found the common thread of our adaptation: as the streets of the city celebrate the victory over the epidemic, "this joyful crowd is unaware that the plague bacillus never dies, and that it can awaken at any moment", explains the screenwriting duo Georges-Marc Benamou and Gilles Taurand in a press release.
A total of 4 x 52-minute episodes, directed by Antoine Garceau, will be broadcast on France 2 from March 4. In terms of casting, the series has called on Frédéric Pierrot(En thérapie, Place publique, Hors normes...) to play the role of Dr Bernard Rieux. Other cast members include Hugo Becker(Dix pour cent, Vaincre ou mourir...), Johan Heldenbergh(Alabama Monroe, Carnivores, Bron...), Judith Chemla(Engrenages, Simone, le voyage du siècle...), Pascale Arbillot(Coco, Maryline, J'irai où tu iras...), Sofia Essaïdi(Les Combattantes...) and Constance Bascou, Elias Hauter and Éric Naggar.
The year is 2030, in a society that eerily echoes the fears and concerns of today. This society has just emerged from the wave of Covid epidemics. And the plague it encounters is far more fearsome... While we've learned to live with the seasonal variants of Covid, a new variant of the plague bacillus called YP2 is discovered in this southern city. In the absence of a cure, the central government decides to seal off the town in order to spare the rest of the country - and then to implement a mysterious " Plan D " whose monstrous mechanisms we gradually discover.
Join us on March 4, 2024 at 9:10pm on France 2 for the first episodes of La Peste, France Télévisions' new series, freely adapted from the novel byAlbert Camus.
