Arte Distribution

In the Middle Ages, Paris gave birth to the world’s most famous stone edifice: Notre-Dame. 7 centuries have passed since its construction. Watch history come alive thanks to 3D reproduction of the monument. A dramatic tale of ambition, talent, destruction, blood and rebirth. 

We tell the incredible 700 year saga of the builders and Church’s Men who invented modern day architecture in France and throughout Europe. Driven by the quest for perfect harmony, they created one of the most emblematic sacred monuments known today. 3D animation and documentary will come together in a history film to give an accurate representation of this great historical fresco. Indeed, the fictional tale, entirely in animation sequences will be the backbone of the film, around which the documentary scenes will be built to provide specific historic and technical explanations.

In April 2019, the world held its breath as Notre Dame, the most wondrous of cathedrals, almost burnt to the ground and with her 800 years of history.
Our film tells Notre Dame’s story, starting in the Middle Ages, when master builders reinvented the art of construction to erect Gothic cathedrals. 
 
 

Eight centuries of passion, talent, blood, destruction and rebirth, during which time the cathedral witnessed some tumultuous moments in the history of France, from the most glorious to its darkest periods. A gripping docu drama that uses 3D animation combined with exclusive footage and interviews of historians, writers (such as Ken Follet, The Pilars of the Earth) scientists, architects and engineers.
 
 

It was in the 12th century that the foundation stone of Notre-Dame was laid in Paris, under the impetus of Bishop Maurice de Sully. Thus began a gigantic construction site: stonemasons, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, all the guilds were involved in building the monument. 

Motivated by faith, driven by the ambition to build a cathedral whose dimensions would outshine even their wildest dreams, the builders of Notre-Dame invented a new architectural style that soon inspired the entire West: ars francigenum, or French art.

In April 2019, the world held its breath as Notre Dame, the most wondrous of cathedrals, almost burnt to the ground and with her 800 years of history.
Our film tells Notre Dame’s story, starting in the Middle Ages, when master builders reinvented the art of construction to erect Gothic cathedrals. 
 
 

Eight centuries of passion, talent, blood, destruction and rebirth, during which time the cathedral witnessed some tumultuous moments in the history of France, from the most glorious to its darkest periods. A gripping docu drama that uses 3D animation combined with exclusive footage and interviews of historians, writers (such as Ken Follet, The Pilars of the Earth) scientists, architects and engineers

In the 13th century, when the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris had just been completed, its builders had to push themselves even further: the new cathedrals that were springing up all over Europe offered them new grandiose technical challenges and competition. 

Hundreds of men and women put in countless hours to embellish Notre-Dame de Paris and enable this jewel of stone, wood, iron and glass to stand the test of time. For her trials were not over: she would have to face wars, revolutions and, above all, the ravages of time. In the 19th century, two men in particular have made the cathedral more relevant than ever: Victor Hugo magnified it in his novel Notre-Dame de Paris, and the architect Viollet-Le-Duc thoroughly restored it. His passion for the cathedral brought it back to life. Thanks to him, Notre-Dame became the beating heart of Paris, once again.

This series tells world history through a few major dates, revisited through the prism of memory. Driven by the accessible and passionate delivery of historian Patrick Boucheron, history comes to life under our eyes with bold and entertaining graphics.

A date is a snapshot, a flashback which requires crossing disciplines such as history, art, archeology and literature for a vibrant and sensitive reading of the past. It arouses our childhood curiosity, recalling when we dreamed of a time machine.
The series is conceived to potentially become a key reference in teaching history.

There have been countless works of fiction based on true stories. It seems we can never have enough of them. Everyday folk are all the rage - and they often make excellent fictional characters. This documentary series takes up where fictional adaptations leave off and tells the real-life stories they are based on, using a wealth of archive material to retrace the extraordinary lives of the ordinary people involved.

Since the 1990s, our interest in true stories has skyrocketed. The shelves of bookshops are lined with them, and they fuel box-office hits. "Based on a true story" has become a favourite advertising hook, with its promise of strong emotions and dramatic events. Over and above its selling power, our fascination with real-life stories says much about the times we live in and our hunger for authenticity. In a world in which traditional moral criteria are becoming blurred, society is desperately searching for something real to hold onto. And people reason that if a story is true, it could easily have happened to them.

Targeted assassinations, bombings, unidentified military attacks are piling up all over the Middle East. Can the "secret war" between Iran and Israel turn into a major regional if not global confrontation?

The two countries are nowadays the two dominant powers in the Middle East. Their conflict is reinforced by the renewed tension between the United States and Iran since President Trump decided to leave the nuclear agreement. Based on unprecedented archival research, access to high profile players in Israel, Iran, Lebanon and the US, the film looks back over the forty years that followed the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Civil war in Syria, to offer relevant keys to understanding the new Middle East.

There are few commodities as global as drugs. How this trade influenced relations between states, global financial interests, secret diplomacies, secret special forces and mafias, on all continents over a century in a half.

This series explores the history of drug trafficking from a political perspective and reveals the murky role played by many states which have used the drug trade as an instrument of power. Opium, heroin, cocaine, and designer drugs have sparked wars, financed militias, and brought down states.

This film, consisting entirely of archives, recounts the daily lives of both German civilians and soldiers during the six years of WW2, from its start in September 1939 up to the months following the German surrender. A plunge into the private lives of a people on the path to self-destruction.

April 1945. The allied bombings had reduced Germany to ruins. The American and Soviet forces were concentrating on Berlin. Yet even when everything was already clearly lost, the Germans continued to fight for the Nazi regime to the bitter end. However, when the Second World War exploded six years earlier, the idea of war was deeply unpopular amongst the German population.
How can such a tremendous shift in public opinion be explained ? What did the Germans believe they were fighting for ? Were they aware that they were leading a genocidal war? Why did the German people continue to fight to the death, despite the bombings, hardships and deprivation, convinced that they were fighting for their survival ?
Based on The German War. A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45 - the innovative work by the historian Nicholas Stargardt drawn from a Herculean research effort - this film, consisting entirely of archives, will recount the daily lives of both German civilians and soldiers during the six years of the Second World War, from its start in September 1939 up to the months following the German surrender.
Constructed from the letters, diaries and eyewitness accounts of Germans from all walks of life, the film plunges us into the lives of the men and women who lived through the tornado born of their own violence. Soldiers writing to their fiancees or their families, World War I veterans, members of Hitler Youth, persecuted Jews, anti-Nazis, priests and pastors, journalists, writers... The words they left behind reveal the personal thoughts of a people at war, raising the curtain on the mechanics of the Nazi regime.
 
This is a direct dive into the tsunami of World War II, when Nazism pushed its mortal logic to the extreme end.

Our film tells Notre Dame’s story, starting in the Middle Ages, when master builders reinvented the art of construction to erect Gothic cathedrals. A gripping docu drama that uses 3D animation combined with exclusive footage and interviews of historians, writers (such as Ken Follet) scientists, architects and engineers.

In April 2019, the world held its breath as Notre Dame, the most wondrous of cathedrals, almost burnt to the ground and with her 800 years of history.
Eight centuries of passion, talent, blood, destruction and rebirth, during which time the cathedral witnessed some tumultuous moments in the history of France, from the most glorious to its darkest periods. 

*Also available: NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS: THE AGE OF THE BUILDERS*
 

The working class has played an essential part of European countries’ history – through revolutions, wars and social progress.  In 4 episodes of a spectacular tale, this show reminds us of what our societies owe to the workers’ movements and its struggles.

The story begins in the 18th century. But their fight carries on today. Much of our current democracies’ institutions and values flow from older working class demands: universal suffrage or social solidarity are some of its most telling examples. Our culture – the way we dress, the songs we listen to, the movies we watch and the mass-media themselves – heavily relies on the workers’ erstwhile popular culture. Finally, all across Asia, Africa and Latin America, millions of women and men experience lives similar to the 18th and 19th centuries’ European working class. We will bring out the present’s ever looming shadow by constantly flowing back and forth between history and current situations. Those contemporary testimonies and photographs will help us gather the threads of memory between yesterday and nowadays together again.