Gender is everywhere.
He knows how to create excitement.
The Kings of the Scam
on Netflix,
Never Show That to Anyone
on Prime Video or
Air Cocaïne
on Canal+ are more talked about than certain films that are released in theaters.
Christine Cauquelin, who oversees the documentaries of the encrypted channel, notes:
“In the same way as sport or cinema, this genre has become a major subscription lever for us.
Especially with younger people.
»
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Users often consume them alone,
“in the second or third part of the evening”
, details a study commissioned by Canal+.
Everyone, by joining their room, draws from the multiple themes visible on the myCanal platform.
Storytelling priority
To attract this pool of new subscribers, the French channel has doubled its production volumes this year.
The budget allocated to creations and purchases has been multiplied by one and a half.
“I had the means to work
,” smiles Christine Cauquelin, from her office in Issy-les-Moulineaux.
The proof with the ambitious documentary miniseries
Air Cocaïne
, which returned last March to the case of the same name.
In 2012, a band of broken arms set up drug trafficking from the Dominican Republic by private jet.
The pilots, who were cleared by French justice, had been exfiltrated by an ex-soldier close to the extreme right…
“The dramaturgy is in reality.
We develop what it gives us by using the codes of fiction”
, details the one that accompanied the launch of the Canal+ Docs channel in 2021. These codes involve in particular the use of “cliffhangers”, open endings intended to keep suspense.
But also the use of witnesses more to embody the story than to comment on it.
"The attention paid to the narration is very Anglo-Saxon when, like good children of Descartes, the French seem more at ease with deciphering"
Christine Cauquelin, Director of Discovery Channels and Documentaries of the Canal+ Group
Netflix has paved the way for this storytelling, sometimes borrowing it excessively.
"The attention paid to the narration is very Anglo-Saxon when, like good children of Descartes, the French seem more comfortable with decryption", observes
Christine Cauquelin, who also considers that certain documentaries benefit from being serialized.
Air Cocaïne
is told in four 52-minute episodes.
Multiple scenes of reconstructions complete the testimonies.
This may displease viewers above all eager to follow and understand the investigation.
But Canal+ does not seek to do journalism, and assumes it.
The priority goes to the narration, without disguising the reality.
Read alsoAfter fifty-six years of exploits, the discourse of the method according to Jean Todt, on Canal +
After the astonishing
Moochie
in February, the channel will continue its incursions into news items with a film in preparation on the slaughter of Chevaline (2012).
A specialty of the house and an area that federates, sport constitutes a good part of the offer.
In a documentary released this week, athlete Mo Farah traces a past that he had kept secret until now.
Alain Prost will have the right to an event portrait.
Just like Guy Savoy, figure of French haute cuisine.
And for the youngest, she concocts a six times 26 minutes, deliberately short format, on Dadju.
"Nobody saw me coming, I went up crescendo"
, hums this rap star in
Dançarina
.
The documentary unit of the channel hopes, one can imagine, to be able to say the same soon.
