BBC Buys Jean-Xavier De Lestrade’s ‘Samber’ Thriller Along With Other Broadcasters & Max

The BBC has picked up Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s TV thriller Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime , which was titled Samber in France.

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A wealth of other broadcasters including Spain’s Movistar and Portugal’s Nos plus Max for second window in France have also picked up Samber.

Starring Alix Poisson ( The returned, Six Women ) and Clémence Poesy ( The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Tenet ), the series is based on true events and follows the extraordinary legal case of a serial rapist who attacked women across three decades in the same location. The France Télévisions thriller came fresh off the back of the smash success of French movie Anatomy of a Fall.

Sambre starts in Northern France in the late 1980s, where women are being sexually assaulted along the same road by the Sambre river, with attacks taking place early mornings and in a similar style. The justice system is overwhelmed by the accumulating cases. It will take 30 years to catch a man, who never stopped attacking women and is responsible for at least 54 cases of rape or sexual assault, leading to repercussions that were still being felt at the beginning of the #metoo era.

The show also stars Olivier Gourmet ( Oussekine, La Promesse ), Noémie Lvovsky ( Camille Rewinds, Farewell, My Queen ), Jonathan Turnbull ( Soldiers ) and Pauline Parigot ( Soldiers, HPI ).

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It is the latest high-profile drama series picked up by the BBC, following the likes of Suits and Colin From Accounts.

Federation Studios, which co-produced the series and sells globally, said a UK purchase of a French show is “exceptional given its rarity.”

De Lestrade is the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind docuseries The Staircase and the drama Laetitia . Sambre is written and created by Alice Géraud and Marc Herpoux, and based on the investigation by Alice Géraud. Produced by What’s Up Films and Federation Studios in coproduction with Versus Production, it was originally commissioned by France Télévisions.

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