“Infiniti”, French space series between thriller and science fiction – rts.ch

“Infiniti” begins with a cargo ship trying to dock the ISS space station. Everything seems to be going well according to the information gathered in real time by the Baikonur operational base in Kazakhstan, when in fact, this is not the case.

According to scientists on board, the balance is poor. They activate an automated docking system to regain control, but a solar storm disrupts everything and causes a collision between the cargo ship and the orbital station which finds itself destroyed and in distress. The connection with Earth is cut. It is impossible to know if the astronauts survived …

A paradox

Not far from the Baikonur cosmodrome, on the roof of a destroyed building, the police are called to report the discovery of a dead body. That of a man, completely naked and completely covered in wax, who was beheaded.

DNA analysis confirms that he is Anthony Kurz (Lex Schrapnel), an American astronaut who was aboard the International Space Station in distress. A very disturbing revelation because even if the ISS were to explode, which no radar or telescope has seen, no one could fall into the interstellar void.

The French astronaut, Anna Zarathi, played by Céline Sallette and the local soldier, Isaak Turgun, played by Daniar Alshinov manage to explain this paradox. The investigation will be very difficult due to the political interests and secrets at stake.

Ancestral beliefs

Through the success of the media of Thomas Pesquet, inspired by meetings with astronauts like Claudie Haigneré, the first European in space, “Infiniti”, a French mini-series in six episodes produced by Canal+, invests in a genre that is generally associated with Anglo- Saxons.

Directed by Thierry Poiraud (“White Zone”), it also paints the end of the world, during the rise of private companies like SpaceX.

At the beginning of the project, the desire of the authors Stéphane Pannetier and Julien Vanlerenberghe to write about the contrast between the air base of Kourou, in Guyana, and the surrounding forest, with its Amerindian villages and their ancestral beliefs.

“By digging a little deeper, we found that this conflict between science and the spiritual kind” was found “in all the places where the rockets were launched,” explained Julien Vanlerenberghe during a press conference in March. These are “private places”, added the screenwriter, who is still marked by the presence of “herds of camels” near Baikonur, from where Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin left.

By finally choosing this Russian territory, leased until 2050 from Kazakhstan, independent since 1991, the authors were able to “increase the levels” of their plot easily.

Filmed in French, English and even Russian, “Infiniti” shows well the “Tower of Babel” represented by the “conquest of space and the International Center”, according to producer Eric Laroche. “You have to watch it in the original version, it’s part of the journey,” insists Julien Vanlerenberghe.

Radio subject: Pascal Bernheim

Web corrections: aq and afp

“Infiniti”, a mini-series of 6 episodes, to watch on Canal+