EXCLUSIVE: French YA series The Mountain will launch internationally at MIPCOM in Cannes next week. The sci-fi drama – known as Bugarach in France – will be on the slate of France TV Distribution as the TV world gathers on the Côte d’Azur.
The Bugarach of the title is a peak in the Corbières mountain range in southern France, which has long-inspired mythical tales. A small village in its foothills became a popular destination with hippies in the 1960s and 1970s and then among new age groups in more recent times. The number of visitors peaked amid stories, perpetuated online, that the mountain has mystical powers and housed aliens who, some believed, could save them from a coming apocalypse.
The Mountain series follows three women, Emilie (Marilyn Lima), Justine (Lulu Cotton-Frapier) and Tessa (Lisa Do Couto Texeira). They investigate Emilie’s father’s disappearance after his helicopter goes down over Mount Bugarach.
There are suspicions it is related to controversial drilling project launched by a shadowy energy company, Muller Global. In keeping with the mythology surrounding Bugarach, the women’s investigations uncover something that defies imagination – a portal to various parallel worlds. Emilie embarks on a frenzied quest in the multiverse in an attempt to find her father and also to avert an environmental disaster.
The Mountain bowed on France.tv.Slash, the youth-skewing service from France Télévisions and the French pubcaster’s distribution arm will now bring it to market. Buyers will be offered it as an eight-part half-hour series or as a four-parter with hour-long episodes. The series was produced by French prodcos Cantina Studio and Tabo Tabo Films out of Paris.
France TV Distribution rolls into Cannes with The Mountain and other scripted offerings including the much-anticipated Zorro reboot, shipwreck series Sea Shadows and period dramas The Huguenots and George, Untamed Spirit.