‘Spiral’ Co-Director Set to Write, Helm Mini-Series About Missing Malaysia Flight
By Elsa Keslassy
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Nora Melhli’s recently launched production company Alef One is set to produce an untitled thriller mini-series based on Ghyslain Wattrelos’s book “Flight MH370, A Life Rerouted” and Florence de Changy’s “Flight MH370 did not simply disappear.”
Gilles Bannier, the director of episodes of “Spiral” and “The Tunnel,” will write and direct the six-episode series. It will explore the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH37 which vanished in the depths of the Indian Ocean, carrying 239 passengers.
This mini-series will also follow the personal journey of Wattrelos (the author of the novel which the drama will be based on) who lost his wife and two of his three children in the tragedy.
Set across seven countries, the story will depict the event from multiple perspectives: the victims’s families, aeronautical engineers, politicians, the scientific community, police, justice and intelligence.
Nora Melhli, who is also head of original creation at Altice and previously ran fiction programming at Shine France, said she has been “intrigued by the various questions raised by this tragedy” and decided to tell this story after
hearing Wattrelos say that the search had ended.
“To me, it was obvious that this tragedy would best be told through the prism of fiction; it’s the only genre that allows to get into the twists and turns of the investigation, to deeply explore the characters and to make them real but not a simplistic way. Beyond the puzzling mystery, it also carries a universal human story, said Melhli, adding that the show will have an “obvious international scope.”
Bannier, meanwhile, said that “like any script based on a real story, the challenge rests on the tone and the rigor we owe to the truth.” Bannier previously worked with Melhli on “The Tunnel.”
Alef One was co-founded last Spring by Melhli and Arthur Essebag, who is a prominent French TV host and producer.
