A family house, with stories hanging on the walls
Rendez-Vous Production was born in 1995 out of a wish to tell stories and to welcome people. Thirty years on, the house looks after its catalogue and prepares its next chapters.
The man and the production
François Charlent founded Rendez-Vous Production to do what he loved: bring people together around a story. Over three decades, the house made its name in prime-time drama: 90-minute single films for M6, France 2, France 3 and TF1, collections it devised and extended, Vertige, Carnets d'ado, Je hais…, then series and serials. It worked with directors it followed from one film to the next, and with actors who came back.
Alongside this, it produced documentaries for France 5 and France 2 that take their time: Professor Marcel Rufo's Maison des adolescents, the great figures of French sport, a London fashion school. A catalogue built title by title, and a few awards at Saint-Tropez to say so.
The handing on
The house is chaired today by Paul Charlent, the founder's son. Handing on a catalogue is not putting it away: it means knowing every title, knowing where the rights sit, who holds them and for how long, and making all of that legible to those who might take it up.
That is the work undertaken here. The works are documented one by one, the distribution mandates clarified, the contacts made obvious. And because a production house does not live on what it has already made, the workshop of creation is reopening, with series first.
The art of welcoming
Later, François Charlent left the film sets for a house among the vines, where people were received around a table. Those who knew him would say he had not changed profession. He did not create places, he created moments: a fireplace, a few lamps, candles, books left lying there. You only understood how right it was once you were sitting down, glass in hand, in good company.
Making people feel good, letting them dream a little: that was already what he was after when he produced films. It is from that house that this site takes its colours: the linen, the golden stone, the burgundy of the wine, the green of the vines. And its way of welcoming people.
« To produce is a story, an audience, a rendez-vous. »