Director of Bataclan series defends filming drama inside theatre

The Oscar-winning director of a TV miniseries about survivors of the 2015 terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris has rejected accusations that his decision to film inside the theatre was "indecent".

- Kim Willsher

Jean-Xavier de Lestrade said the hostages on whose story the eight-part docudrama was based wanted their terrifying ordeal recreated inside the building and to film it elsewhere would have been "trickery".

Des Vivants (The Living) was released this week in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the coordinated series of mass shootings and suicide bombings in the French capital that left 130 people dead and more than 490 injured.

It uses actors to tell the story of seven men and women trying to rebuild their lives after Islamist gunmen held them hostage in the Bataclan. The terrorists forced them to watch as they carried on killing and threatened to shoot them if they moved.

Arthur Dénouveaux, the president of the Life for Paris association, which represents many survivors of the attacks, said filming in the theatre had "blurred the lines between fiction and reality" and upset survivors and bereaved families.