On the occasion of the broadcast tonight on NRJ12 of Counter-investigation, a look back at the career of Franck Mancuso, who became a director after 20 years of service in the Judicial Police.
Counter-investigation plunges the viewer into the sordid world of a criminal case led by a captain confronted with the murder of his own daughter. At the helm of this realistic thriller, Franck Mancuso signs his first achievement after 20 years of good and loyal service within the Judicial Police.
In the same way as his colleagues Olivier Marchal and Simon Michaël, Franck Mancuso left the police to put his experience at the service of cinema. An environment in which he arrived by chance: " In 1990, while I was working at the Quai des Orfèvres, the "Commissaire Moulin" team was shooting in our premises. From meetings to suggestions, I became a consultant"he says in the press kit." Over the months, my involvement grew more and more, and I was offered to go further by working directly on the creation of the stories. The first episode I co-wrote was called "The Zombies", and was directly inspired by the group I belonged to. I wrote one or two episodes a year because I liked it. "
Pathé Distribution
Franck Mancuso on the set of Counter-Inquiry
But that doesn't mean he was planning to change jobs. Until the click: " In 2000, after several of these very formative experiences, I was offered to write an episode on my own. I had just turned 40, was going to have a child, felt the turn coming and saw that as a sign. I took the plunge. It was no longer possible for me to carry out my police and writing work simultaneously. So I put myself on availability. I was lucky that this episode had a very good audience score and resulted in other orders. So I extended my availability and things happened, until my participation in the scenario of 36 Quai des Orfèvres. "
Cases like the one that is at the heart of Counter-Inquiry, Mancuso has often rubbed shoulders with during his 20 years of service: " As far as I'm concerned, child homicides are the most horrific", explains the director." I often put myself in the shoes of these families. I wondered how I would feel about their situation, how I would react. Malinowski's story is a projection of what I imagined, what I dreaded and how much I experienced. It is a fiction at the confluence of many human realities. This story was born at the crossroads of a cop experience, a father's affection and a desire to tell stories.. "
Writing the screenplay was moreover a real emotional test, leading the director to take full measure of the reality and the intensity of these files. " Alone in front of my computer, I remembered all the lived experiences, the faces, the facts that came from so many cases, and all the feelings that I sometimes had not even realized at the time. When you have been a cop for twenty years, that you write, that you are going to direct, and that you yourself are the father of a six-year-old child, you obviously get very involved. "
With this first achievement and the many stories he has in store, Franck Mancuso did not stop at this test. Four years after Counter-investigation, the director reunites Yvan Attal and Pascal Elbé in the detective story RIF which tells the story of a captain of the PJ accused of being involved in the disappearance of his wife. He is also the creator of the Lanester series in which Richard Berry plays a police commander suffering from blindness following a psychological shock but still continues his investigations thanks to the help of a young taxi driver played by Emma de Caunes .
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