The BBC has acquired the rights to a new French crime thriller, Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime. The series, based on true events, recounts the story of a serial rapist who evaded capture for three decades.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, known for his work on The Staircase and Laetitia, directs this six-part series. The cast includes Alix Poisson, Clémence Poesy, Olivier Gourmet, and Noémie Lvovsky, among others.
Anatomy of a Crime is set in Northern France in the late 1980s and centres on a series of sexual assaults taking place along the same road by the Sambre river. The attacks, occurring in the early mornings, bear a striking similarity in style. However, the police fail to recognise the pattern and the cases go unnoticed, with the justice system struggling to cope with the growing number of assaults.
It was not until 30 years later that authorities finally caught the man responsible, who, during those three decades, never stopped attacking women and is believed to have at least 54 cases of rape or sexual assault to his name.
The series follows the progression of the investigation and its impact from the 1980s through to 2018, coinciding with the rise of the #MeToo movement.
Sue Deeks, Head of BBC Programme Acquisition, said: “‘Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime’ is an absorbing series about France’s most notorious sexual predator, and of how he was allowed to slip through the cracks of the judicial system for over 30 years.”
Each episode is told from the perspective of a different character involved in the case, including a victim, a judge, a scientist, and eventually, the perpetrator. It offers a gripping examination of societal flaws and the failures of its institutions.
Sambre – Anatomy of a Crime is directed by Jean-Xavier De Lestrade and written and created by Alice Géraud and Marc Herpoux. It is produced by What’s Up Films and Federation Studios, in coproduction with Versus Production, and was originally commissioned by France Televisions.
