The French-language Belgian series "La Trêve/The Truce" has just been sold to public television broadcasters in Flanders (VRT) and French-speaking Switzerland (RTS) during MIPTV, the largest international market for TV and digital content in Cannes.
"The Truce" is a detective series broken down into ten 52-minute episodes and created by Matthieu Donck, Stéphane Bergmans and Benjamin d'Aoust as part of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation-RTBF Fund for Belgian Series.
It became an immediate hit when broadcast on La Une channel (RTBF), the series clinching an average audience share of 22.5% – or 400,000 viewers on average. This ratings success is accompanied by recognition by the critics and the profession, as "The Truce" has just come away with a prize from the Paris Series Mania Festival, a major event dedicated to series that sets to be a unique window into world-wide small-screen creativity magnified onto the big screen. The series was named "Best French-language Series". Another French-language series, "Ennemi public/Public Enemy" was awarded the Best Actor prize for Angelo Bison.
A police series and radiograph of a village lost in the Ardennes forest, "The Truce" is primarily the story of 40-year old Yoann Peeters (Yoann Blanc), a man on the edge who has not worked since the death of his wife, and who has decided to settle in Heiderfeld, the village where he grew up, with his daughter Camille. A vacancy opens up with the local police. Yoann sees this as an opportunity to move to the countryside and make a fresh start. But reality quickly takes over. A few days after Carnival, the body of a young Togolese footballer, Driss Assani, is found in a river. Nobody has experience of this kind of investigation in the village. Except for him. While everyone quickly loses interest in the fate of this kid who has met his death thousands of miles from home, Yoann Peeters begins to unearth the most hidden secrets of this small community he knows so well. But Yoann should not have resumed his duties so quickly – not a case like this, not in a place like this.
"The Truce" is produced by Hélicotronc in co-production with RTBF and Proximus, and with the support of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, CasaKafka Pictures, Wallimage-Bruxellimage and RMB. The series is distributed internationally by Ella Productions (Benelux, France, Switzerland) and Federation Entertainment (rest of the world).