Tonight at 8:50 PM, numerous viewers will be in front of their televisions to watch the first two episodes of “Mystère,” a TV movie directed by Didier Albert (a TV movie in 12 x 52 min episodes).
On the occasion of the 47th Monte Carlo Television Festival, Nice-Premium wanted to learn more about the dual-authored screenplay writing process.
Taki Candelis, the head of fiction at TF1, approached Melina Detcheva and Franck Ollivier to write a serial drama about “Crop Circles.”
“We did research to find out what is being said about these phenomena of extraterrestrial life. We went to the USA. Then, we identified the themes that came up most frequently like crop circles, implants: small substances found under the skin of patients, whose chemical analysis corresponds to nothing known on Earth, at least that’s what they discovered in the United States. In fact, we built our serial based on what is being said and what scientists admit today. There are several hypotheses, we have chosen those that will help us tell our story,” explains Malina Detcheva. And what a story!
Summary:
June 20, 1980. A violent jolt surprises the crew and passengers of flight 173 from Paris to Marseille. The plane loses altitude, dives into the void and disappears from radar screens…
20 years later, while cleaning out the family home she wishes to sell, a young woman, Laure de Lestrade, finds amidst her memories a series of geometric drawings accompanied by the enigmatic phrase: “we must meet again!”
In the region, Laure notices in a cornfield, a vast Crop Circle whose design curiously reminds her of her childhood drawings. Intrigued, she returns to the site and is assaulted by a stranger, a kind of vagabond, who warns her of imminent danger using the same phrase: “we must meet again.”
This is how the start of the first episode unfolds. Subsequently, new “agroglyphs” appear in a neighboring field. Human disappearances remain unexplained. There are silences, lies… Are there beings from another world? Can we believe in extraterrestrial life? “It’s not a matter of belief. We move forward and discover things on Earth. There was a time when people didn’t think the Earth was round. We don’t know everything yet to this day and it doesn’t seem impossible that there might be something else,” smiles Melina Detcheva.
Writing such a screenplay inevitably leaves a mark. “It is true. We discovered an opening in our destiny. It’s a new awareness of ourselves. Mystère, it’s a phase of truth. They say that television, cinema, is our mirror. In this TV movie, we talk about life as a life not seen every day. The first two episodes are less fantastic than the following ones so that the viewer learns to tame, discover, and accept this universe,” emphasizes the screenwriter who wanted to attend film school as soon as she saw E.T.
Yesterday, with Franck Ollivier, she wrote thriller screenplays, today they have turned to the paranormal. How does this work with two hands? Melina Detcheva reveals the mysteries of her writing. “With Franck, we talk a lot. We find ideas. We search. We have a certain rigor. As soon as something does not please one or the other, we throw it away. We tell each other everything. Sometimes our discussions are very heated. Then we set our axes and we dive in, but we always continue to talk to construct the movement of the characters. Each writes a version of the TV movie. For example, me the first episode and Franck the second. We know where we are going because, in the beginning, we set the bases in about twenty pages.”
These pages have given birth to a novel, a novel very close to the fiction indeed, so if you are tempted to discover before the twelfth episode what will become of the life of the beautiful and young Laure de Lestrade, a book is already waiting for you on the shelves of bookstores.
Tell us, Malina, to close our interview, a little scoop: Is a sequel to “Le Maître du Zodiaque” planned? “A sequel to Zodiaque is always possible. In fact, it all depends on the public. If people like it, if there is feedback, if especially the producer wishes it. But it’s a privilege to find the characters a season or two later. They are part of a life.” And for Mystère? “That’s also possible, but in that case, it would rather be a direct sequel, thematically, but everything is in the hands of the public.”
Website of the summer saga: [https://lachaine.tf1.fr/mystere/](https://lachaine.tf1.fr/mystere/)
