ARTE Distribution

By the producers of the internationally acclaimed series The Great Greek Myths, this new series unveils for the first time the true essence of Nordic tales based on ancient texts.  These Nordic legends gave birth to the most popular culture block busters: Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Marvel’s Thor or George R. R. Martin’s GOT.

The fascination for this mythological world became widespread and
and extended to the youngest, sensitive to the many explicit references in popular culture. All these references are only inspired by these myths, by modifying, adapting or transforming them. The original stories have never been faithfully retranscribed with the very soul of these legends, the complexity of their characters. More precisely, it seems that no documentary production has ever attempted to tell these stories as they have come down to us. This documentary series based on ancient texts is therefore unique. It aims to tell the stories in a rigorous  way to constitute a patrimonial answer to the interest in this mythological universe.

Discover the most remarkable and amazing markets on the planet. From the camel market in Mauritania, to the sacred flower market in Calcutta, or the esoteric market of Mexico, they are the last bastions of countries customs and cultures. This series takes you to 10 destinations for an anthropological and cultural dive, and a reflection on our globalized consumption patterns.
10 episodes for 10 locations (to be confirmed):
 
1- The loincloth market of Lomé in Togo
2- The camel market of Nouakchott in Mauritania
3- The fish market of Jagalchi in Busan, South Korea
4- The esoteric market of Mexico City in Mexico
5- The floating market of Cai Rang in the South Vietnam
6- The textile market of Otavalo in Ecuador
7- The traditional medicine market of Daegu in South Korea 
8- The flower market of Madurai, India
9- The livestock market of Forth Worth in Texas, USA
10- The incense market in Oman

Let us meet the men and women who make these markets a place of commercial and cultural exchange. While the globalized economy leads a standardization of tastes and consumption, going to a market allows you to dive immediately into the culture of a country, to meet its inhabitants, its food, its smells, its colors, its costumes. This 10-episodes series makes you travel to 10 different destinations. An anthropological and cultural dive into the societies that implement those markets as well as a reflection on our way to consume at a time of globalized capitalism.

Little is known about the Chinese triads, the world's most influential mafias. Thanks to exclusive interviews with key protagonists, this in-depth thriller investigation takes us right into the heart of the world’s most powerful criminal organization, to reveal its far-reaching influence on geopolitics and economy.

Who are they? What are their activities and strategies?  What is their role in the Chinese culture and history? Appearing in the 17th century, the triads built their myth around the fight against China’s enemies. After Mao’s victory, they went into exile to two new territories where they established themselves and thrived: Hong Kong and Taiwan. Members of the triads have become businessmen, in order to control part of the underground economy, both in Asia and in the West. They are merging into the game of globalization, inventing new drug networks while investing in real estate in major Canadian or Australian cities and flood the world with fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.

Discover the history of European peasants, from the 6th century to the present day, in a four-part series that travels the European countryside following the traces of its hidden history, which has long remained unwritten.

From the sixth to the twentieth century, most Europeans were peasants. In other words, peasant history is part of the history of Europe too. However, because their culture and historical tradition was oral, most of the peasant history is unkown. The dominant were the only ones to have recorded history and they hardly ever spoke about peasants. There are many descriptions of fields and harvests, but the peasants remained invisible – as if the wheat grew by itself. They were mentionned on very few occasions, but it was always from the masters’ perspective. They were described as a wild and ignorant mass that should not be educated because it would prevent them from working the land. Today, the contemporary historians’ perspective sheds a new light on the history of the rural world to see the peasants no longer as passive objects but as the actors of their own history. Haut du formulaire

Thanks to the Internet and streaming platforms that have spread Stand Up internationally, this popular comic art has become the prism through which major contemporary issues are seen: in the abundance and sometimes the clash of identities, a global movement that challenges the established order.
Stand up told by its icons: Jamel Debbouze, Blanche Gardin, Ali Wong, Vir Das, Fary and Hannah Gasby.

The success of stand-up comedy can be measured by the growth of comedy clubs in cities around the world in recent years. It can also be seen through the investments of an international streaming platform like Netflix, which keeps producing and broadcasting shows, while scouting for new local talents. All over the world, young people are picking up just an ordinary microphone to laugh at themselves, society and its morals.
The protest dimension of this comic art is also the instrument of an untimely and sarcastic speech, where the most agitated fringe of a society, its youth, gives itself the right to express its moods on its state of health, its palpitations, its dreams and its disappointments. Stand-up comedy is a way of breaking down minds and fixed opinions, to slip in, through its sense of observation and absurdity, new considerations on our social relationships. When talking about stand-up comedy, we are  talking about the contemporary state of society.

This 3-film series explores the depth of the connection, both physical and spiritual, between three nomadic tribes of Mongolia and animals. In each film, the protagonist struggles with an identity crisis between modernity and tradition. However, by returning to the wilderness and bonding with the sacred animal, they find a way to resolve their inner conflict.

Whether it's a woman convincing a camel to adopt a baby through music, a child trying to cure her illness by finding her protective reindeer, or a teenage girl breaking free of gender codes by training a golden eagle, these three stories expose the strength of the relationships between the nomadic tribes of Mongolia and the local animals. While the relationships between the protagonists and the animals may seem strange, exotic, the conflicts and problems they face are universal. They awaken something familiar in us, evoke myths and common beliefs. In each story, the iconic animal acts as a mirror through which humans learn about themselves and the dilemmas they face in a changing modern world. 
 
"These ancient rituals of human-animal connection are among the last authentic forms of cultural expression for nomads. As an ethnographic filmmaker, I would like to document these rituals before they disappear, these ancient bonds that connect us to nature and animals. It is this secret language that I would like to convey in this trilogy." Hamid Sardar

The imaginary universes of fantasy irrigate literature, cinema, video and role-playing games. But what crucible was it forged in? What are its founding works? Illustrator John Howe, the concept artist of the Lord of the Rings series, takes us on a four-part journey to discover the artists who have crafted fantasy.

Over the past twenty years, our views on Fantasy have shifted tremendously. Long reduced to repetitive adventures in comic books or movies with kitschy settings and poor scenarios, Fantasy now faces higher expectations from readers and critics alike, who demand complex heroes, strong female characters, original universes, in tune with more modern issues.
From its distant origins in myths and legends to its emergence into popular culture in the second half of the 20th century, fantasy has gradually taken shape over a history spanning more than a century. From the romantic Germany of the Brothers Grimm to the Texas plains where Robert E. Howard gave birth to the character of Conan, from the socialist utopias of William Morris to the tortured and eccentric mind of HP Lovecraft, John Howe’s travels will be interspersed with animated sequences breathing life into the stories that laid the foundations of the genre. To understand what makes these works so relevant and prevalent today, John Howe will be assisted by renowned experts such as S. T. Joshi, author of a 1200-page biography of Lovecraft, and Patrice Louinet, editor and translator of Robert E. Howard.
 

A series made of hijacked images to understand in a funny and quirky way how our opinions are influenced, and our consent manufactured. Discover from the inside the range of strategies used without our knowledge to shape our desires!

The incredible and untold story of the invention, development and improvement of China's surveillance and repression system over the decades. A new light on China’s totalitarian power following the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.

LAOdong and GAIzao mean "work" and "reform" in Chinese, so LAOGAI is the concept of reform through work. Starting from the present time – the Communist party dealing with Covid – the series will take you back to the origins of the laogai and follow its evolution at the rhythm of the great political caesuras of contemporary China, each period having its share of purges, accumulating one on top of the other, and sparing no sector of Chinese society. A spectacular documentary series that will reveal that China is the greatest totalitarian power of all times.

A new globalized phenomenon : cell phones recording images of over-equipped police facing unarmed furious crowds. The war of images further polarizes police and protesters.

How did it come to this? New revolts, less and less supervised, subjected to a low intensity war. We must avoid killing. “Less lethal” is the new norm: rubber bullets, grenades... But these dangerous weapons can cause harm.
For democracies, the challenges are multiplying. How can the relationship between the population and the police be restored? What are the responses to street disturbances? 

Our brain constantly simplifies reality, opening the door to false logical thought patterns: cognitive biases. These intuitive mechanisms create errors of judgment affecting individual and societal behaviours, that marketing loves to play with, giving birth to fake news.

There is a multitude of biases anchored deep in our brain that leads to errors of perception, evaluation, interpretation... Originally, their function is to allow our brain to save time and energy by developing mental shortcuts. They also facilitate our sociability. In the complexity of our modern world though, this cerebral trick sometimes turns against us, and certain ancestral mechanisms are no longer adapted to the reality of our daily life. Marketing and advertising never stop playing with them; swindlers exploit them for their own benefit; fake news are spread thanks to them. Thus, a better understanding of how it works is a real individual and societal challenge.

An incredible investigation following a cry for help written in Mandarin and hidden in the instructions for a pregnancy test purchased in France. This investigation takes us to the very heart of China and its prison factories.

After two cries for help found in the United States in 2012 and in Great Britain in 2019, this is the first time that a missive in Mandarin elaborated and argued will be revealed. A 21st century message in a bottle. This letter, which describes the atrocious functioning of the Chinese prison system, is the result of an extraordinary investigation that crosses borders. It is a hybrid investigation between an investigation to identify the links that make the exploitation of prisoners possible and a quest to get closer to the person who wrote the letter and their fellow prisoners. Our "comfort" is based on a system similar to the one that existed in the United States 150 years ago: slavery.