Exclusive: ZED acquires ‘l’Affaire d’Outreau’ producer Point du Jour – Les Films du Balibari

l’Affaire d’Outreau

French producer and distributor ZED has acquired long-established factual indie Point du Jour – Les Films du Balibari, the firm behind France 2’s recent true crime primetime hit l’Affaire d’Outreau, TBI has learned.

As a result of the acquistiion, Luc Martin-Gousset, who has been running Nantes-based Point du Jour as president for more than two decades, will be departing the company.

Point du Jour was founded in 1988, having driven an M&A move itself several years ago by acquiring smaller international society and cultural docs producer Les Films du Balibari. Point du Jour has recently faced financial troubles and the company has been under receivership for several months. ZED’s acquistion proposal won out among several companies’ bids at a Paris trade court on Friday.

Specialising in society and current affairs docs, Point du Jour – Les Films du Balibari recently co-produced Europe Revealed with Germany’s Zero One Film, The Last Shelter as part of Generation Africa, and Children Of Las Brisas, together with the UK’s Mosaic Films and the US’ Invento films, France 2, ITVS and PBS. Besides l’Affaire d’Outreau, the firm also produced primetime doc miniseries Histoire d’Une Nation for France 2, and is behind long-running magazine L’oeil et La Main, (With Eyes and Hands) for the deaf and hard of hearing.

In addition to existing shows, ZED takes over Point du Jour – Les Films du Balibari’s projects in development and will continue to work on them.

The company’s library is somewhat complementary to ZED, a prominent international distributor and also a producer, so far more into ethnological, science, history, natural history. ZED is one of the winners of last year’s Global Doc joint-funding call for projects with Destination Moon: The New Space Age that it creating alongside One way Films, France Télévisions, ZDF Terra X and NHK. It recently delivered Wild Treasures Of China, an Arte, CCTV9 and National Geographic co-pro which launched at Sunny Side of the Doc.