Great escapes, “New departure”, Exclusive investigation… What to see on television this weekend?
SATURDAY MARCH 7
France 5 / Magazine – 9:05 p.m.
Beautiful escapes
Lozère is the least populated department in France and its treasures are worth it. Here, you sometimes have to drive more than an hour to cover 20 km in the mountains and endure the harshness of winter and the solitude in the hamlets, far from the towns. But the atmosphere of peace and freedom that emanates from the chestnut forests and vast pastures is incomparable. This week, the show entitled Lozère, unhiver sauvage sends its team in search of Lozère truffles (thanks to Breton spaniels) or on a bivouac in the blizzard. She shows us a smiling face of rural life, with its lottery evenings and community solidarity. The pace of travel is a little droning but the images are picturesque and joyful, for our greatest pleasure.
TF1 / Magazine – 1:40 p.m.
Great reports
35% of French people grow vegetables, plants or flowers. This report, Gardening competition: who will have the greenest thumb?followed some who embarked on impressive competitions. Tel Mehdi, winner every year since 2010 of the French championship for giant pumpkin growers. After a TF1 record of 948 kg, this organic market gardener hopes to exceed the ton. Without knowing anything about gardening, the trio Gala, Paul (architects) and Manon (textile designer) qualified for the Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival by proposing a garden covered in sheep’s wool. Will the originality of their concept appeal to a demanding jury? In Normandy, Emma, 18, dreams of becoming the best apprentice landscaper in France. After failing last year at the gates of the final, she redoubled her efforts to win the departmental and regional events, in order to attempt the national again. As for Giulio, a 40-year-old Italian landscaper based in Paris, he is one of those selected for the very prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in London and intends to win a prize there. Disparate portraits that lack a little warmth.
France.tv / Documentary – rewatch
My father Marius Trésor
Seville (Spain), 1982. At the mention of Marius Trésor, the semi-final of the Football World Cup against West Germany arises and his goal has become legendary. But the documentary signed by his son Thierry goes well beyond. It goes back to Guadeloupe’s childhood, to the dusty pitches, then to the defender’s exemplary career with OM and the Girondins de Bordeaux. The first black captain of the French team, Marius Trésor, 75, opened the way for generations of Afro-Caribbean players without ever setting himself up as a pioneer. This invigorating film paints the portrait of a simple and natural man, and reveals the tenderness of an unknown legend.
SUNDAY MARCH 8
France 5 / Documentary – 9:05 p.m.
The Taliban country
Directors Solène Chalvon Fioriti and Marianne Getti spent time in the shadow of the Taliban. Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, they have kept society under a veritable blanket of lead. Each day brings its share of prohibitions: music banned, chess banned, women excluded from the world of work… and even deprived of learning the profession of midwife. A decision as aberrant as it is dangerous for the health of women and future mothers. Several women denounce the silence of men. But the testimonies reveal a population on a ridge: to protest is to risk losing your job, and leaving your family without resources. Attracting the attention of those in power could make their situation even worse. The report also shows how others try to preserve, in clandestinity, fragments of freedom. Like this Afghan woman who teaches childbirth in the back room of a pharmacy. And then there are those who support the regime… without endorsing all of its decisions. Some even dare to take on the religious police, who terrorize the population. An immersion as remarkable as it is disconcerting.
France 2 / Film – 9:10 p.m.
New beginning
Alain (Franck Dubosc) and Diane (Karin Viard) have been married for thirty years. But when they find themselves alone, without any children at home, nothing goes right. Victim of the famous empty nest syndrome, Diane loses control, looking in other arms for what she had perhaps already found in those of her own husband… Determined to rekindle the flame of their relationship, Alain goes from subterfuge to disappointment. Completely disoriented without each other, these fifty-year-olds will indeed have a hard time recognizing that they are made to love each other. Remake of the Argentinian film Flashbackthis romantic comedy addresses, with uninhibited humor, the question of this new age of couples where the future is once again envisaged face-to-face.
M6 / Documentary – 11:10 p.m.
Exclusive survey
As a wave of violence spreads in Mexico following the February 22 killing of drug lord El Mencho, this issue of Exclusive Investigation, titled Narcos and overtourism: threat to water in Mexicocomes at just the right time. Because another specialty of this cartel is water theft. This country, hard hit by global warming, was declared in a state of water stress in spring 2024. Access to drinking water becomes all the more problematic as the rapid development of tourism increases demand everywhere. The case of Cancún, a locality in Yucatán, is telling: this fishing village has become in a few decades a metropolis of a million inhabitants welcoming crowds of tourists (4 million per year), mainly North Americans. A worrying documentary which highlights that access to water is becoming, in France too, an increasingly urgent social subject.
