‘The Legends of Paris’ Scores Slew of Pre-Sales Ahead of Premiere

“The Legends of Paris: A Tale of the 19th century Artistic Scene” appears have taken buyers by storm even before its official launch at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous market in Le Havre, where it premiered on Tuesday.

Produced by Silex Films and Arte, the four-part series offers an intimate portrait of some of France’s most beloved artistic and literary figures. Taking viewers into the bustling heart of 19th-century Paris, it follows the colorful lives of such legendary artists as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Louis-Hector Berlioz, Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire.

The international interest in the period and personalities is evident: Arte Distribution has already inked pre-sale deals for “The Legends of Paris” with TV Unam in Mexico; The Arts Channel in New Zealand; Swiss broadcaster SRF; Hrvatska radiotelevizija in Croatia; Radio and Television of Montenegro; Georgia’s LEPL Public Broadcaster; and Hellenic Parliament TV in Greece. Arte will air the series in France and Germany.

“The Legends of Paris” is directed and co-written by Amélie Harrault, who also helmed Silex and Arte’s 2015 hit animated series “Adventurers of Modern Art,” which explored the Parisian scene at the turn of the 20th century.

Following the international success of that series, Arte was eager to continue the collaboration on a follow-up project. For Amélie, “this period was her dream,” notes producer Judith Nora of Silex Films, who produced alongside Priscilla Bertin. Harrault wished that “she would have had a series like that as a teenager to understand the poetry, literature, music. So she made the series she dreamed of.”

This specific period was challenging, Nora adds. “Politically, it’s very complicated — there are three revolutions. So we tried really to make it easy for everyone.”

The series is described as a family show that also makes its themes of art and politics accessible to viewers as young as 12. Nora notes that French pupils begin learning about Romanticism at the age of 14, so the series would provide a helpful boost. “Even if you are 10, you don’t understand everything, but you have the flavor of it. That was our goal.”

The project began development in 2017 and proved a major challenge: “It’s six years of writing; it’s 44 years of art history, 30 characters. You have 2,000 Parisian settings. It [entailed] huge research, massive digging into this period. … It was 90 people working for two years doing the animation.”

“Amélie used different techniques of animation. Everything is digital; we used computers and she created tools to recreate her own painting style. That’s something very new.”

Indeed, the team worked with Escape Motions’ Rebelle painting software to create a tool that allowed the animators to work faster. They also employed TVPaint Animation software for the project.

In terms of story, Harrault chose specific characters from the period and “focused on the friendship and the artistic influence between them,” Nora adds.

“We can say that 44 years of art history, all those iconic persons, in animation, using both fiction and documentary – it’s something that has never been done before,” she points out. “With ‘Adventurers of Modern Art’ it was already a big step. We did a lot of masterclasses on the boundaries between fiction and documentary. With this new project, we are really leveling up everything.”

“It’s really a turning point in storytelling,” stresses Joséphine Létang, head of international distribution and marketing at Arte Distribution. “We believe in animation — it really lends strength to storytelling, it broadens audiences and can especially help introduce history and historical figures to younger viewers.”