The Deal: How much is this political thriller streaming on Arte?

what are you talking about

Geneva, April 2015. Amid high tensions, international negotiations began between the US and Iran, which are suspected of secretly developing nuclear weapons. Alexandra Weiss, head of the Swiss diplomatic mission, tries to maintain a delicate balance between the parties working behind the scenes. The unexpected arrival of his former love, Payam Sanjab, an Iranian engineer whose life is in danger, will complicate his task dangerously…

who is he with

The international cast of The Deal brings together actors from all backgrounds, including Britain’s Juliet Stevenson (Really, Mad, Deep) and Fenella Woolgar (Vera Drake), Iran’s Arash Marand (Read Lolita in Tehran) and Alexander Behrang Keshtkar (Bronie) and America’s Anthony Aziz (Terani).

The lead role of Alexandra Weiss, head of the Swiss diplomatic mission, is played by Belgian actress Veerle Baetens, who debuted in 2012 alongside Alabama Monroe and has since appeared in Les Ardennes, Duelles and Quitter la nuit. The actors are largely unknown to the general public, but whose solid performances contribute to The Deal’s success.

what is this

The deal is the result of a collaboration between Alice Winokur, director of Proxima and Revoir Paris, and Jean-Stephane Bron, the Swiss documentary filmmaker to whom we owe Cleveland vs. Wall Street. The duo know each other well, having already worked on scripts for Winokur’s feature films. With The Deal, the filmmakers begin their first feature series.

Bronn, who directed six episodes of the miniseries, explained in the press kit: “I wanted to capture the deal on a human level, in the style of an immersive documentary, as close to the bodies as possible, experiencing the rigors of the negotiation and the scale of its challenges. With Alexandra Weiss’s extraordinary eye, observing the big story through the small lens of protocol, ‘The Deal’ opens its scene beyond the diplomat.” “Alliance games where personal issues are mixed with geopolitical issues.”

is it worth watching

Once opened, the program warns: “The deal is inspired by real events. However, it is a work of fiction. The situations, characters and dialogues presented are the product of the authors’ imagination”. Indeed, the series is set against the backdrop of the final phase of the Iran nuclear talks, which took place in Switzerland in 2015. In the cozy surroundings of a Geneva palace, delegations from Iran, America, Europe, China and Russia meet under the watchful eye of the Swiss Confederation to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

A topic on paper that can chill or intimidate viewers looking for a program”eatable” dependent But rest assured, this is not the case! The Deal manages to connect the public by mixing the human dimension of history and politics. Thus, beyond the diplomatic negotiations, each character has to deal with their own personal history, for example in the case of Alexandra Weiss, who finds herself with her former love, an Iranian engineer, who was imprisoned in her country.

In addition, Jean-Stephane Bron, accustomed in his work as a documentary filmmaker to immerse himself behind the scenes of institutions, fully manages to make the world comprehensible without the need for prior documentation to understand what mechanisms are happening. For the sake of truth, the series is the result of a significant research work, in which Winokur and Bronn included pure fiction stories (love intrigue, betrayal, espionage).

Thus, by using real material and interweaving intimacy and geopolitics, The Deal, which received a special mention script at the Seria Mania 2025 festival, manages to create real tension. Behind the apparent calmness and famous Swiss neutrality, the infernal car mounts are revealed in front of us, at the heart of a fascinating closed session.

Promotion, 6 x 46 minutes, on Arte from 23 October at 20:55 and now available in full on arte.tv