Filming for SRG and Netflix co-production almost complete
Published: Wednesday, Feb 28th 2024, 15:20
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Filming for SRG's first joint production with Netflix is nearing completion. "Winter Palace", a series about the emergence of the luxury hotel industry in the Alps at the end of the 19th century, is to be shown from the end of the year.
The film crew, led by director Pierre Monnard, has been working at the Château Mercier in Sierre VS since Monday. Filming is due to be completed on March 12.
Viewers of French-speaking Swiss television RTS and Play Suisse will be able to watch the eight 45-minute episodes in advance for seven weeks from the end of the year before they are broadcast internationally via Netflix. The series was filmed in English and French.
The first joint production between the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG) and Netflix received seven million francs from the French-speaking Swiss television station RTS; Netflix did not disclose any figures. 18 weeks of filming, almost 60 actors and actresses and 950 extras, around 80 technicians employed in Switzerland, 6,000 costume pieces, a dozen horse-drawn carriages and sleighs were needed to produce the series.
Use of AI
The co-production was supported by the Valais Film Commission. A maximum contribution of CHF 100,000 per project is possible. A total of 113 days were filmed for the production in Valais between 2020 and 2023. Zurich recorded 274 filming days, Vaud 95, Graubünden 90 and Ticino 72.
At Château Mercier, where filming is currently underway, each room has been furnished for a character from the series, as Marion Schramm, who is responsible for the set, told the Keystone-SDA news agency. In one of the rooms, there is a bedspread made of fox fur - "you can only afford that on a film set" - and a picture on the wall generated by artificial intelligence (AI): a clash of two worlds.
AI was also used for the palace that will be shown on the screen: A digital creation, according to producer Xavier Derigo, with real elements from the Caux-Palace above Montreux, the Righi vaudois in Glion VD and the Château Mercier.
Most of the exterior shots were filmed on the Simplon, in the snow at an altitude of over 2000 meters, and in the Binntal valley in Valais. These are landscapes that are not normally seen on television.
The beginnings of the luxury hotel industry
The series tells the story of the beginnings of the luxury hotel industry in the Swiss Alps at the end of the 19th century. The focus is on André Morel, a "somewhat crazy" hotelier and entrepreneur who was able to open this first "winter palace" with the finances of an English lord.
"The history of the hotel industry is one of the most interesting epics that can be told about Switzerland at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century," said director Monnard. For the character of Morel, the series was inspired by César Ritz, "a pioneer who defied the conventional ideas of his time".
The character of Morel is played by 29-year-old French-Swiss actor Cyril Metzger, who has already filmed with Pierre Monnard in the series "Hors saison" and played in "La voie royale" by Frédéric Mermoud, which has been nominated for the Quartz Swiss Film Award.
The actor, who lives between Geneva and Paris, is delighted to be playing in Switzerland: "We filmed above Montreux, where my father lives. Then in Valais, where I spent a lot of time," said the actor. He is accompanied by around twenty actors from French-speaking Switzerland as well as several French actors such as Manon Clavel, who plays Rose, Morel's wife.
A hero from the "Vikings" series
The English actors include Simon Ludders as Lord Fairfax, Henry Pettigrew as Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, a regular in the Swiss hotel palaces of the time, and Clive Standen, a hero of the "Vikings" series, as Lance Raney.
So far, Monnard sees no difference in the collaboration with the large streaming platform: "Apart from the resources provided," Cyril Metzger qualified: "More than 70 shooting days in Switzerland for a series are rare."
"We work with Netflix in the same way as we do with RTS and SRF," the director continued, "and we hope to keep it that way during the editing phase."
Before the support from Netflix, the idea for the series originated in the minds of screenwriter Lindsay Shapiro and producer Jean-Marc Fröhle, who runs the company Point Prod in Geneva, which is another partner in the project alongside Oble (France).
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