The Amazing Story – a new TV series hosted by Stéphane Bern, airing on France 2 and produced by CAPA – leads viewers back in time to give them a better understanding of… our modern lives.

France’s history isn’t only about our kings and queens, nor the nation’s great battles and milestones. It’s also a story about our way of life and what makes up our daily existence: our clothes, our pastimes, our schools, and our health. In the first episode of a brand-new show, part entertainment and part history lesson, we tell the amazing story of restaurants.

France has more than 780,000 culinary establishments, the highest number of restaurants per capita in the world. Over the centuries, the French have developed a true passion for restaurants.

Stéphane Bern will embark viewers upon a one-of-a-kind journey, literally taking them back in time for a first-hand glimpse of the key chapters of our culinary history, looking at how restaurants were born and have since evolved. Great efforts will be taken to recreate authentic period costumes and decors, for this enlightening trip back in time.

This fascinating story starts in the Middle Ages, when the first inns opened. It moves forward to the French Revolution, when the first modern restaurants popped up around the Royal Palace. As this adventure unfolds, viewers will see that the birth of French cuisine goes hand-in-hand with the democratization of restaurants, symbolized by the rowdy “guinguettes” that became so popular with the working classes at the start of the 20th century.

Stéphane Bern decided to bring along two culinary rising stars on this journey. Nathalie Nguyen and Grégory Cuilleron became household names after competing in cooking contest shows. These young chefs represent the next generation of 21st-century cuisine, in its most modern and bounteous form. Along with viewers, they discover the history of their profession.

As they plunge back into the past, our two cooking wiz-kids will have to start fresh. Working without electricity or refrigeration changes everything: from tools, to ingredients as well as culinary practices. They will have to take on surprising challenges, such as cooking supper at a medieval inn, or making ice cream the way it was done during the French Revolution… without a freezer.

The Amazing Story is a journey back in time that takes viewers on an adventure teeming with surprises, laughter and thrills! This one-of-a-kind family-friendly show is not only educational, but also highly entertaining!

A TV show hosted by Stéphane BERN | Delegate Producer: CAPA Presse | Director: Fabrice MICHELIN | Producers: Philippe LEVASSEUR, Nicolas VALODE | Artistic Director: Yoan ZERBIT | Executive Producer: Justine MARTIN CHAUFFIER | Head Writer: Emilie LANÇON

A CAPA production | 
Based on an original idea by the NEWEN Development Department | With the participation of FRANCE TÉLÉVISIONS |Program Advisors: Nathalie Denise, Héloïse Martin Saint Léon | Deputy Head of the Entertainment Division: Nicolas Marinos | Head of the Entertainment and Gameshow Division at France 2: Marie Genest

While for now the world’s attention is focused on surveys and TV debates, it will have to wait until November 8 to know the outcome of the Clinton / Trump duel. To accompany this exceptional evening of coverage, CANAL+ has chosen two exclusive documentaries produced by CAPA, “Showtime !” and “Pour qui roule Hollywood ?”, two expert looks at the rise of show-biz and tabloid politics.

“Showtime” by Laurence Haïm

8 November at 10.50 PM on Canal+

The duel between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is unprecedented, it has become a veritable entertainment show and the winner on 8 November will be crowned as a genuine TV Reality star. This Broadway-show-like presidential campaign is quite a particular one. Laurence Haïm followed the campaign into the country’s most remote states, as well as each camp’s primaries and their conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia. It’s tabloid politics in all its splendour: it is more a matter of health records, Miss Piggy, or Duck Dynasty, than Afghanistan, the situation in Aleppo or the economy, as Dan Rather points out, lamenting the pitiful reality of this second decade of the 21st Century. And as the campaign advances, the blows are increasingly below the belt. Even Robert De Niro threatened to punch Trump after the sexist video involving the Republican candidate was leaked by the “Washington Post” on 7 October 2016.

It took the question put by undecided voter Ken Bone, about the country’s energy resources to refocus the second debate between the two candidates on a political issue. Laurence Haïm tries to understand how the US political world has become a no-holds-barred arena. A show stopping spectacle that is being lapped up by the social networks, which both accelerate and amplify what the news channels pump out daily. Basically, it’s SHOWTIME!

“Pour qui roule Hollywood ?” by Vanina Kanban

8 November 11.45 PM on Canal +

On November 8, America will elect its 45th president. Hollywood, land of legends but also of political engagement, will have largely contributed to the vote. But who is it rooting for? The Democrats or the Republicans? To find out, Vanina Kanban spent many weeks sounding out the campaign climate in Hollywood. For decades now, driven by the same fever, the movie mecca and the presidential candidates hit the campaign trail at the same time. Thus Hollywood has become one of the key playmakers of US political and social life.

Perceived as open, humanist and tolerant, this formidable entertainment machine takes its place in the order of things as a key pro-Democrat force. To do so, it relies on quite a number of artists, people like: George Clooney, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt or even Scarlett Johansson – who do not hesitate to promote their candidates at highly mediatized galas and fund raising dinners. But despite the actors, directors or producers who have publicly taken a stand in favour of Hillary Clinton, Hollywood remains essentially, but discreetly, conservative…

The documentary “L’île aux enfants de l’exode” directed by Sarah Lebas and Cyril Thomas and produced by CAPA Presse wwas awarded a Special Mention by the Jury of FIGRA 2016.

This International Festival of Current Affairs and Documentary Reportage was held from 30 March to 3 April 2016 at Touquet-Paris-Plage. Every year the jury honours the most “essential and irreplaceable knowledge and information supports for a television of quality”.

This year, the jury presided by Jean Paul Mari chose to honour the CAPA Presse team in the Over 40-minute International Competition category..

Having come ashore on the Greek island of Lesbos, this limbo between two worlds, these children tell us of the migrants’ ordeal, from the horrors of war to the dream of a gentler existence. The words of children: raw, moving, often funny, sometimes tragic, always disarmingly sincere. While the refugee crisis has sown the seeds of fear in Europe, the words of these exodus children question our consciences.

Click here for more informations about the documentary “L’île aux enfants de l’exode”