Banijay Studios France and Dominique Farrugia’s Shine Fiction have come together under the Shine Fiction banner to produce premium series for local linear and global streaming partners.
Farrugia will run the new structure as chairman and Banijay Studios France managing director Guillaume Thouret will serve as COO.
Shine Fiction is now home to the English-language Marie Antoinette, which Banijay Rights has sold to more than 140 markets, with the second season having just debuted on Canal+. Upcoming titles include comedy crime series The Family Detective (TF1), thriller Rien ne t’Efface (TF1), and mysterious coming-of-age drama Désenchantées (France TV).
Shine Fiction’s production team includes Chanelle Bernard, Stéphanie Chartreux, Carole Della Valle, and Soizic Gelbard.
Farrugia joined Banijay in 2020 when it was Endemol Shine Fiction before rebranding the following year to Shine Fiction. He told Screen the new structure will allow Shine Fiction to expand the size of its team and increase production volume.
“Our goal is to have a bigger footprint and to satisfy several channels with different projects,” said Farrugia. “We have strong relationships with French channels like TF1, M6, France Televisions and Canal+ and hope to expand our relationship with Apple TV+ and also work with Amazon, Netflix and other global streamers in the future.”
Shine Fiction currently produces between two and three series a year and aims to increase that to between three and five. “Our editorial strategy is simply to make series we want to watch,” the executive added.
Shine Fiction’s French series Carême, about the world’s first celebrity chef Antonin Carême and co-produced with Vanessa van Zuylen for Apple TV+, was the opening series at Series Mania in Lille last Friday (March 21) and airs on the streamer on April 30.
While Farrugia came from a feature production background prior working with Banijay, he said Shine Fiction will remain focused on series production. The entity will leverage Banijay’s global reach to explore co-production prospects with the group’s worldwide subsidiaries. Farrugia said, “It’s great that the French language and culture can shine all over the world thanks to these global series, but we are open to English-language possibilities and co-productions.”
Alexia Laroche-Joubert, CEO Banijay France, added: “By proactively bringing together these two renowned labels under the Shine Fiction banner, we will unlock an entirely new level of creative and production expertise for our scripted business in France.”
Banijay France’s upcoming titles include Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight from Montmartre Film for Netflix, and Montmartre, a co-production between Authentic Productions and TF1.
Banijay Entertainment, launched in 2008, houses some 130 production companies across 21 territories with €3.348bn in revenues and €528m in EBITDA in 2024 alone. Its scripted standouts include Fallen, Roue Heroes, Bergerac, and House Of Guinness.
In addition to Carême, Banijay Entertainment is attending Series Mania with A Life’s Worth in the festival’s International Panorama section, which screened on Monday and screens again on Wednesday, and Weiss & Morales, which is part of a content showcase at the Forum.
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