37 seconds: “As much a battle for the truth as to be considered”

Just sacred to the César, Nina Meurisse plunges back and invites herself into the world of sailors, replaying the drama of Bugaled Breizh in a new amazing Arte series. Encounter.

37 secondsthis is the title of the series. And it is also the drama experienced by five sailors on January 15, 2004 off Cape Lizard. “The sinking of Bugaled Breizh took place in 37 seconds. It took 37 seconds for their boat to finish at the bottom of the sea …”

Nina Meurisse humbly admits that she did not know the history of the trawler, mysteriously sent by the substance by an event that is difficult to explain 20 years ago.

The actress Caesarea at the end of February (for Souleymane’s story) embodies Marie Madec, employee with the local mareing, whose brother-in-law was part of the crew of Bugaled Breizh. Marie lives with the sea, sailors, fishing, and she will bring the fight of truth to justice. If the characters were invented, to keep a part of fiction, the whole affair of Bugaled Breizh really took place. “I knew absolutely nothing about this story and I was sawn by its complexity. I can even say admiring before the endurance of families to discover the truth, people who did not have the codes, those of justice, to fully understand all the proponents of such a matter. They had crazy courage!”

Over the six episodes signed Laure de Butlerdirector of Syndrome Eand crowned best French series at Mania series A few days ago, Nina Meurisse therefore leads the battle of the courts to understand what happened to the boat on this tragic day, and tells in filigree the universe of sailors, fishing and all this ecosystem of this corner of Brittany.

Because the shooting took place on site, at Guilvinecat the southwest tip of South Finistèrewhere the real was registered Bugaled Breizh Before the drama. “We were warmly welcomed on the spot. They were very happy that we could thus film the sea, the sailors, without disdain” recalls the actress from Normandy. “We spent four months filming there, with them. We did surfing, we ate langoustines, I really fell in love with Brittany and we could feel that they were happy that we are talking about this event.”

Which also convinced Nina Meurisse to accept the series is precisely this idea that 37 seconds is not just a judicial history. It is also a social drama that “Harts light on the midst of sailors that we don’t really know. It is an area not often portrayed in series, of passionate people, on which we often have received ideas. Unfortunately, dramas are part of their job. I was not at all aware of the danger of working on a trawler like that.” And for the actress who hit Fever Last year on Canal +, it is also the kind of series that allows you to put the workers’ figure at the center of the television story. “And not in a caricatured way. These are not people who want to change social backgrounds. We often show this working class as absolutely wanting to climb on a social scale, while the question does not arise for them. They are very good where they are, but they only ask for recognition of their suffering and a form of consideration, in the face of contempt that they can feel. I believe that their battle was as much for the truth as to be considered.”

There remains this question which will haunt a whole region for a long time: how the Bugaled Breizh been able to sink so quickly? On the daytime day, NATO submarines were in office. So, was the trawler driven by the background accidentally? The judicial case ended in 2021 with British justice, which concluded that a tragic fishing accident.

But after working on this story for many months, heard various testimonies, the writers Anne Landois And Sophie Kovess-Brun say they are convinced by the submarine thesis, that defended most of the families of victims. Nina Meurisseshe does not take a stand and believes that “Make a series on this story is already giving these people a form of recognition that they did not have at the time.”

37 seconds, in 6 episodes, to see on Arte.TV and April 3 on Arte.