8 x 1hr
BRIDE OF NEW FRANCE is a riveting and erotic historical drama set in the seventeenth century that tells the astonishing story of LAURE BEAUSÉJOUR, a courageous French orphaned girl who becomes a Fille du Roi (‘Daughter of the King’). Laure is sent to the wilderness of Canada to marry a French soldier, rebels against the restrictive expectations of being a colonial wife by falling in love with an Iroquois man, and fights – never a victim, always a heroine - to make her way in the world. And at the center of the series is a love story in the vein of OUTLANDER: a forbidden romance between a French orphaned girl and an allied Iroquois “warrior,” himself an orphan. Their love story will be tumultuous and fraught with peril, passion, and bloodshed.
And even more than a love story, BRIDE OF NEW FRANCE – like VIKINGS – will explode our existing notions of North American history. Everyone knows about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock - and when we think of the pioneers who settled the (so-called) ‘New World,’ we think of romance, bravery, danger, striking out into the great unknown – and the spirit of adventure and survival. But BRIDE OF NEW FRANCE will dismantle these patriarchal master narratives of colonialism by telling the true story of the founding mothers, not the founding fathers of North America. It’s an important part of history - more specifically, women’s history. It’s a story that has never been dramatized before - and what will make it so unique is that it will focus on marginalized female and Indigenous characters from history who had to endure the brutal violence of colonization -- even while participating in it at times. BRIDE OF NEW FRANCE is the untold story of the Filles du Roi.
Historical records show that the Filles du Roi were required to be of appropriate age (16) for giving birth and that they be healthy and strong for country work, or that they at least have some aptitude for household chores. Ironically, the girls were primarily waifs: impoverished, orphaned, or destitute teenagers recruited from religious institutions in Paris, Rouen, and other Northern cities, whose lives in France were miserable and hopeless.
A smaller group was recruited from hardy Breton farm girls whose future would presumably be much improved as the wife of a land-owning settler. A few girls were also enlisted from higher-born families who had lost their money - with no chance of making a beneficial match in France, they would be married off to colonial military officers and thus keep their social standing. Regardless of their social backgrounds, all these disparate young women shared one thing: desire for a future better than the one they faced in France. Their journey would be one of survival and reinvention … with a heavy dose of THE HANDMAID’S TALE.
