Cozy Crime Hit ‘Bright Minds’ & Notre-Dame Doc Scoop French TV Export Awards

Cozy crime hit Bright Minds – aka Astrid et Raphaëlle – and a doc about the painstaking rebuild of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris have taken top honors at France’s TV Export awards.

French producers and distribs are building a rep around the world for cozy crime shows. The drama sub-genre remains popular with international buyers who like the broad audience these shows deliver, with their mostly non-edgy and story-of-the-week set-ups. Gaumont’s L’Art Du Crime, Federation International’s Tropiques Criminels and TF1’s High Intellectual Potential all fit the bill, but it was Bright Minds that won this year’s export accolade in the drama category. France TV Distribution sells the show internationally.

Industry org Unifrance organizes the Export Awards and its President, Gilles Pélisson, and Director of Audiovisual, Sarah Hemar, dished out the accolades. The ceremony took place this evening as part of the French TV Producer Awards.

In the docs section Terranoa-distributed doc Notre-Dame Reborn won. Shot from 2020 to 2024, the one-off film captures the meticulous work that went into bringing Notre-Dame back to life after it was hit by a huge fire in 2019.

France has traditionally fared well in international animation sales but has been losing ground recently, as revealed by the latest export figures. In the toons category, however, Studio Hari-distributed Mystery Lane was the pick of the bunch and won the export gong.

The titles shortlisted for the Export Awards are voted on by international buyers at Unifrance’s annual Rendez-Vous market in Le Havre. The Producer Awards bash was held at the Trianon, the iconic concert hall in Paris.