The future of French documentary — in partnership with Unifrance
This is your French update, live from Cannes.
Together with :
Thursday 16th, October 2025
LE BIG STORY 📰
In 2024, French documentary production reached a new milestone.
According to the CNC ), total production increased by 7.4%, reaching 1,810 hours — the highest level in a decade. The average cost per hour climbed to €225,500, a 30-year record, confirming that French producers are investing more heavily in ambitious, high-end projects.
Public broadcasters remain the driving force behind this revival, providing over 72% of broadcaster financing (mainly France Télévisions and ARTE), while platforms such as Netflix and Prime Video increasingly co-finance original French documentaries.
This renewed vitality has translated into editorial diversity, covering historical investigations, scientific exploration, environmental storytelling, and social topics.
Key figures (CNC, 2024)
• +7.4% in hours produced (1,810 hours)
• €225.5K average cost per hour
• 72% of financing from public broadcasters
Why it matters:
This signals a sector that combines creative depth and industrial resilience, ready to meet the growing demand for authentic, author-driven factual content.
UN CAFÉ WITH ☕️
SELLERS’ CORNER 🤝
A brief look at some of this week’s sales agents that were presenting their projects on the UNIFRANCE stand at MIPCOM.
STUDIOFACT RIGHTS
Seller: Bertrand Lossignol
Contact: b.lossignol@studiofact.fr ↗
Standout project: 13 November: Our Shattered Lives — Director: Valérie Manns
Pitch: Built from over a thousand unprecedented interviews by the “Programme 13-11,” the film assembles a choral narrative of the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks—tracing physical and psychological trauma and the societal shift that followed—to form a living collective memory.
Trailer: Vimeo ↗
ZED
Seller: Charlotte Tachet
Contact: ctachet@zed.fr ↗
Standout project: Anime: A Japanese Epic — Director: Colas Tran
Pitch: A globe-spanning series charting 50 years of Japanese animation’s rise—from craft to global impact—through studio heads, creators, artists, journalists, and iconic voices, unpacking the milestones and rules that shaped anime’s dominance.
Info & Trailer: ZED screening room ↗
LUKARN
Seller: Sandrine Frantz
Contact: sandrine.frantz@lukarn.fr ↗
Standout project: The Iron Mask: The Enigma of the Sun King
Pitch: A documentary investigation into the legend of the Man in the Iron Mask and its ties to Louis XIV, revisiting archives, theories, and historical figures to probe one of France’s most enduring royal mysteries.
Project page: LUKARN ↗
THE BUREAU SALES
Seller: François-Xavier Alet
Contact: fxa@lebureaufilms.com ↗
Standout project: International Catalogue (450+ titles) — Various directors
Pitch: A prestige library featuring auteurs and award-winning filmmakers, including the catalogues of WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS, CELLULOID DREAMS, and REZO FILMS, alongside new in-house productions and co-productions.
Catalogue: Our catalogue ↗
ONLY DISTRIB
Seller: Laurene Voilliot & Sarah Budriesi
Contact: laurene.voilliot@tv-only.com ↗, sarah.budriesi@tv-only.com ↗
Standout project: Hope! (6x52’)
Pitch: Six character-led journeys across four continents spotlight practical, measurable solutions to climate change—grounded in personal stories and modeled impacts, inspired by Project Drawdown—to channel an active, pragmatic optimism.
INA
Seller: Elsa Lonne-Smith
Contact: elonnesmith@ina.fr ↗
Standout project: Just Listen to Women — Director: Sonia Gonzalez
Pitch: A powerful, archive-rich account of clandestine abortion in France before 1975, weaving thirteen testimonies with fiction and historical footage to revive a time of fear, courage, and ingenuity on the path to the right to choose.
Trailer: Vimeo ↗
THE PARTY FILM SALES
Seller: Estelle De Araujo & Melen Bouëtard
Contact: team@thepartysales.com ↗, estelle.dearaujo@thepartysales.com ↗, melen.bouetard@thepartysales.com ↗
Standout project: The Danish Woman (Series, 6x47’)
Pitch: Rambo, Napoleon, and Pippi Longstocking rolled into one—and she lives next door. After retiring with honors from the Danish Secret Service, Ditte Jensen moves to a Reykjavik apartment block to live quietly. But her elite-soldier instincts turn the building into a battleground for a better world as she tackles neighbors’ problems—whether they want help or not—where the end always justifies the means.
Trailer: Vimeo ↗
FIGHTING SPIRIT
Seller: Laurent Pourrut
Contact: laurent@fighting.fr ↗
Standout project: Hexagone MMA
Pitch: A France-based European MMA brand staging spectacular events in iconic venues—from Zénith arenas to ancient amphitheaters—and expanding internationally in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Germany, drawing a fast-growing global audience.
Assets: Press materials / assets ↗
LE PETIT UPDATE 🗞️
Mattel Studios unveiled its new content roadmap at MIPCOM 2025, announcing a slate that extends the Barbie universe and leans into live-action storytelling across multiple platforms.
YouTube and Banijay joined forces at MIPCOM to spotlight creator-driven IP, bridging digital and television formats through new co-production models.
Disney used MIPCOM to reaffirm its investment in local production, unveiling new European originals as part of its global content diversification strategy.
Mediawan Pictures CEO Elisabeth d’Arvieu outlined the group’s international ambitions, emphasizing its push into franchise storytelling and global partnerships.