Olivier Marchal returns this Monday, January 30, 2023 with Carbon, broadcast on France 3 at 9:10 p.m. A detective film (carried by Benoît Magimel) inspired by real events.
It is the French specialist of thrillers. Formerly a police inspector (for fifteen years), Olivier Marchal takes a completely different direction (although) by leaving his post to devote himself to cinema. In the 2000s, he notably obtained roles in Do not tell anyone (2006), Scorpio (2007), or even for her (2008). But it is especially behind the camera that he stands out. Two years after his first feature film (Gangsters), he reveals himself to the general public with 36 Quai des Goldsmiths in 2004, which attracted two million onlookers to cinemas. He then makes rather dark and realistic thrillers by chaining with MR73 (2008) and The Lyonnais (2011). In 2017, Olivier Marchal, who will not return to the series The Crimson Riversreturns with Carbon.
1.6 billion euros embezzled in France between 2008 and 2009
In Carbon, Antoine Roca (Benoît Magimel), an ordinary man in debt, develops a VAT fraud on carbon quotas to avoid losing his business. In this scam, he joins forces with a mobster, which gets him into some trouble. This effective thriller is also inspired by the well-known carbon tax fraud. The facts date back to 2008 and 2009. During this period, 1.6 billion euros in France – and between 5 and 10 billion euros for all the Member States of the European Union – would have been embezzled according to Europol (European Criminal Police Agency). The opportunity for Olivier Marchal, who is preparing a new series, to take an interest in other types of criminals than in his previous films. “In fact, I’m not very interested in crooks. Thugs, robbers fascinate me because I believe that despite everything, it takes courage to choose this life”reveals the director in the press kit.
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Olivier Marchal has “transposed the subject into the world of a small boss”
Relatively neophyte on the subject before embarking on his film, Olivier Marchal was fascinated by this fraud: “I had therefore followed this European carbon tax scam from afar. While preparing the film, I really discovered the springs of the case and I understood that it was a very brilliant but also very complex”. However, the director has chosen to distance himself from the original affair and to simplify things in order to interest the spectators as much as possible: “Our approach was to transpose the subject into the world of a small boss, on the verge of losing his business because of taxes and duties but who will discover that the law can allow him, by diverting it, to save his box by ba*sing the State!”evokes without concession Olivier Marchal.
