2026 Nominees

Those Who Lived

What's Up Films, Mizar Films, Nac Films

FRANCE

- Drama Series: Non-English Language

The series Des Vivants (The Living) follows the extraordinary journey of the "Potages," a group of eleven strangers who formed an unbreakable bond after being held hostage by terrorists on the first floor of the Bataclan. By focusing on their two-hour face-to-face ordeal with the killers and the subsequent decade of recovery, the work distinguishes itself through a radical ethical commitment: it rejects traditional fictional tropes and sensationalism to remain strictly faithful to real-life testimonies, even retaining the protagonists' actual first names. Filmed on the very sites where the events occurred, the series is remarkable for its refusal of the "heroic resilience" cliché, choosing instead to explore—with documentary-like restraint—the collapses and silences of survivors whose private trauma became a national burden. It is a collective, healing narrative that, rather than overplaying the horror, celebrates humor and tenderness as the ultimate defenses against barbarity.