The World Does Not Exist: 5 Things To Know About The Arte Series

On Thursday, September 26, Arte airs a mini-series titled The World Doesn't Exist in prime time. This French-made thriller, filmed in Pas-de-Calais, is an adaptation of a successful novel. Here are 5 things to know about this unique thriller, tinged with humor and strangeness.

This miniseries is a crime drama in four acts.

Lovers of suspense and detective stories, don't miss the new series broadcast on Arte on Thursday, September 26!

With the mini-series The World Does Not Exist, the Franco-German channel offers viewers an evening of crime drama in four acts. Arte has indeed planned to air the entire fiction in one go, which consists of four 55-minute episodes.

Get ready for an evening as strange as it is captivating. It will be difficult to take your eyes off the screen, as this French-made crime drama promises to keep viewers on the edge of their seats!

2- It is a journalist who is conducting the investigation.

For once, the main character in the crime novel "The World Does Not Exist" is not a police officer or detective but a journalist. Adam Vollmann, played by Niels Schneider, is a disillusioned journalist confined to his Parisian office.

When a sordid murder is committed in Guerches-sur-Isoire, a small town in northern France, he insists on going to investigate on-site. And for good reason: it is his hometown, which he left twenty years earlier to forge a new identity...

To investigate this news story that affects him closely, he decides to return, even if it means bringing back the ghosts of the past.

3- This series is an adaptation of a best-selling novel.

The 4-episode mini-series The World Does Not Exist is an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Fabrice Humbert, published by Gallimard in 2020.

By adapting this novel, director Erwan Le Duc (Perdrix, Sous contrôle, La fille de son père) set himself the challenge of shooting a series between David Lynch's Twin Peaks and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island.

In the end, this atypical and unsettling mini-series renews the codes of the crime genre as the investigation of a murder is drowned in the memories of the main character.

This adaptation remains faithful to the spirit and atmosphere of the novel, even though the director chose to transpose this story from the United States to France and set his cameras in Pas-de-Calais.

4- This thriller has an unusual atmosphere.

Expect to be surprised because the mini-series The World Does Not Exist is not a classic crime thriller. For the main character, simply walking the streets of his hometown brings back his darkest memories...

Thanks to well-balanced flashbacks, which allow the viewer to keep track of the story, we discover that Adam Vollmann fled the violence of a gang of youths.

The leader of this gang, Alex Challe, is the main suspect in the investigation into the murder of Lola Montès, the daughter of a local star. Returning to his hometown to investigate, Adam finds himself facing his former tormentors who do not recognize him…

5- This series is very addictive.

The series The World Does Not Exist proves to be very addictive right from the start, thanks in particular to the aura of mystery surrounding the characters. This crime drama is populated with quirky and offbeat characters, who evolve in a strange but increasingly dark atmosphere as the investigation progresses.

The perfectly crafted story manages to maintain suspense while exploring the past and psychology of its anti-hero, brilliantly portrayed by the excellent Niels Schneider.

If this presentation has piqued your curiosity, tune in tonight at 8:55 PM on Arte to follow the twist-filled quest of this journalist confronted with the ghosts of his past.