The casting of Jean-Xavier de Lestrade's series on the Bataclan attack, “Des vivants”, revealed

Filming of the miniseries on a group of survivors of November 13, 2015 began on November 18 with, among others, Benjamin Lavernhe, Félix Moati and Alix Poisson. The broadcast should take place on France 2 next November.

«NWe are ready, collectively, to see a fictional story about the Bataclan. » Last March, as part of the Séries Mania festival in Lille, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade told Telerama the first details on his new series, Living people. After in particular Laëtitia (2019) et Sambre (2023), the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and director tackles another very real story, that of the “potages” (contraction of “mates” and “hostages”), a group of seven people held for more than two hours by terrorists in a corridor of the Bataclan, November 13, 2015.

To play these survivors, who became close after the events, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade chose Benjamin Lavernhe from the Comédie-Française, Antoine Reinartz, Félix Moati, Anne Steffens (Nothing to lose), Thomas Goldberg (100 % Bio), Cédric Eeckhout (A barrage against the Pacific) and Alix Poisson, central figure of his filmography, from The Disappearance has Sambre. Megan Northam and Sam Karmann are also part of the cast. On the writing side, Antoine Lacomblez, co-writer of Influence games, Laetitia et Manon 20 years old, is back alongside Jean-Xavier de Lestrade.

A look at French society

The filming of the six episodes of Of the Living begins this Monday, November 18 and will end next April. The miniseries should be broadcast on France 2 for the tenth anniversary of the attacks, in November 2025. “I think that gives us enough perspective. Symbolically, the largest association of victims of the November 13 attacks, Life for Paris, will self-dissolve on this dateexplains Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. There are documentaries, but no series on the victims yet. The time for fiction has come. It helps to build an imagination, to create a common story. It's important to come. »

Of the Living will also be a means, as always in the creations of Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, to take a look at contemporary French society. “She questions […] the way our country deals with its victims. This is why it is important that we also show the trial lasting more than nine months organized by the Republic, symbolic of the means we are using to ensure that justice is done. », he explains. « [C’est] a story that binds and brings together around values ​​that seem essential to me and that we should not be afraid to recall in a period that seems to value conflict, division or confrontation,” he specifies in the France 2 press release.