Toulouse-lautrec High School: A Series Inspired By A True Story On Tf1

Starting Monday, January 9, TF1 will broadcast Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, a drama about a school with both able-bodied and disabled students. But did you know that this event series on adolescence and disability is inspired by a true story?

Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, what does it say?

The series Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec which will soon be broadcast on TF1 is highly anticipated as it won the Prize for the best 52-minute series at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival. But by the way, what is it about?

Victoire, 17, (played by Chine Thybaud) joins a new high school that welcomes both able-bodied and disabled students. The teenager discovers on the first day of school that she will be the mentor of Marie-Antoinette, a student who uses a wheelchair.

In this new environment, she is going to have a nightmarish start to the school year. She will have to confront the difference and overcome her prejudices.

Through the story of Victoire and her classmates, this series tackles all the themes of adolescence: stories of love and friendship and issues such as harassment in the school environment...

Why is this series making the buzz?

Awarded the prize won at the TV Fiction Festival in La Rochelle in September 2022, the series Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec is announced as the new event series of TF1.

Beyond this award, this fiction stands out by addressing the complex theme of disability among teenagers.

It is set in the only high school in France that simultaneously welcomes able-bodied and disabled students. This high school located in Vaucresson in the Hauts-de-Seine is the first French boarding school dedicated to the integration of students with disabilities.

Not only was the series filmed on location while the high school was in operation, which allowed the actors to be immersed in the reality of the place, but its script was inspired by real events.

Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec, is this a true story?

The Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec series is inspired by the lived experience of Fanny Riedberger who wrote, directed and produced this groundbreaking drama.

The director who proposed this 6-episode series to TF1 explains, 'My parents had found this establishment for my brother who was going through great difficulties after falling from the 6th floor at the age of 6. That's how I spent three years there too.'

This unique institution was established in 1980. It has the principle of mixing all students, able-bodied or not. 'At my time, the director recalls, one able-bodied student would take care of one disabled student. Without the existence of Toulouse-Lautrec, three quarters of them would have spent their lives in Garches hospital, taking correspondence courses'.

For young Fanny Riedberger, this experience was not without its difficulties when she arrived at this high school like no other. 'My first instinct was to run away. I was in the minority. The disabled person was me.'

Years later, it was within the walls of this same institution that she decided to shoot this series and recruit her young actors. She says: 'The casting was very demanding, both for the actors with disabilities and for the others. Those who didn't make the cut were cast as extras.'

What is this new series worth?

Contrary to what one might fear, the Toulouse-Lautrec High School series does not fall into pathos. This new teen drama shows the daily life of this school where the jokes fly like in any other high school...

In this place that favors co-education, all the students look alike because they share the same teenage emotions. When it comes to love and friendship, disability no longer exists.

The casting is very successful with young teens more real than life and confirmed actors like Stéphane de Groodt in the role of the principal and Valérie Karsenti in that of his assistant. Also in the cast are Aure Atika and Rayane Bensetti.

Among the revelations of this series, we will retain the young Ness Merad, 19 years old, former student of Toulouse-Lautrec high school. The young woman who suffers from myopathy talks about her disability and the gaze of others without taboo: 'The feelings we are regularly confronted with are either exclusion or too much compassion. I would like us to find a happy medium.'

Through the videos she shares on her Youtube channel By Nessou, the camera has become a friend. It's easier to bear than people's eyes. 'In general, able-bodied people should integrate the world of disability more. It's a question of courage and organization.'

The series Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec is to discover on TF1 from Monday, January 9 at 21h10. Do not miss this series that deals with accuracy and humor of adolescence and difference!