Infiniti (Canal+) – What is this French science fiction series filmed in Ukraine?

What? did you know that Claudie Haigneré closed his eyes every time the Soyuz rocket sent him into space?” The story is told by Stéphane Pannetier and Julien Vanlerenberghe, his partner. The two slightly crazy filmmakers from Infiniti went so far as to interview the astronaut – the first French and European woman to go into space – and spent time with him, in the company of director Thierry Poiraud, who was very involved in this project, to collect this kind of information, which it makes their story more believable. Imagine a series conversion True Detectivenot in Louisiana, but in Kazakhstan, and the touch ofInterstellar. More precisely, Infinity begins with the discovery of a corpse on the roof of a building in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country independent since 1991, but still within the sphere of Russian influence. The body, with the head cut off, is covered with a kind of wax. After DNA analysis, it will be Anthony Kurz (Lex Shrapnel), an American astronaut. But this should be in orbit, inside the ISS, the International Space Station. Then begins a strange investigation, which brings together Isaak Turgun (Daniyar Alshinov), a stubborn Kazakh soldier, and Anna Zarathi (Céline Sallette), a French astronaut, excluded from the last ISS mission due to health problems.

Taken by the truth

To shoot this series of six episodes, the team of producers and actors went to film last year, during the disaster, a certain place in Kazakhstan where the city of Baikonur is located (population 36,000) which emerged from the cosmodrome (under Russian rule), from. where the Soyuz launchers take off, but more than 2,300 kilometers from Paris, in Ukraine, was invaded by the Russian army since February 24. “I lived for two and a half months in Kyiv,” recalls Céline Sallette, distraught. We formed bonds, friendships. To think that these people are hiding today in the streets of the Ukrainian capital is disgusting … “ If Ukraine had been chosen at that time, it was for the quality of its teams capable of rebuilding the ISS, in great detail, to make them functional, equipped with cables, flexible with complete safety, to recreate the normal movement of astronauts. for its weightlessness, and also for its current remnants of the Soviet era.

Today, despite the fighting, links are maintained between Paris and Kyiv, but the team cannot do much more than get information, send medicine or basic needs. As if it echoes the truth, Infinity it reminds us that History, the weight of the past, is still everywhere in these regions. If in the war of Isaak, the Kazakh soldier continues to investigate, despite the restrictions of his leadership under the orders of the Russian neighbor, but also in the questions surrounding the conquest of space. The latest news, according to NASA, cooperation between the United States and Russia continues normally, despite the tension associated with the war in Ukraine. The Soyuz spacecraft is expected to return to Baikonur on March 30, an American astronaut, after 355 days in space, and two Russian astronauts.

Infiniti: Monday April 4 at 9:10 pm on Canal+

Frédéric Rapilly