CAPA Deputy Director Unveils Sean Connery Doc; Talks Mission To Expand French Company’s International Reach

EXCLUSIVE: A documentary promising unprecedented behind-the-scenes insight into the life of late Scottish star Sean Connery is in the works at Paris-based factual film and TV production company CAPA.

Titled Sean Connery: The Untold Story, it is being developed and directed by French journalist and TV presenter Stéphanie Renouvin, who is the French granddaughter of the James Bond star and his second wife, the French Moroccan painter Micheline Roquebrune.

It follows Renouvin’s 2022 mini-series Mme Sean Connery, which focused on her grandmother and was made primarily for a French audience.

Sean Connery: The Untold Story is one of the upcoming titles currently being developed by Sally Blake, the newly appointed Deputy Director of CAPA, which is part of the Studio TFI group.

“We developed it here. It’s a coproduction with Canal Plus and Sky has come onboard in the UK,” says Blake, also citing London-based Embankment and Glasgow-based Boy 313 as coproducers.

Blake, who was appointed to her new role in early September, will work closely with CAPA MD Patrice Lorton, with a mission to “internationalize” the company’s activities and specific goals to connect it with new territories and sources of funding.

She says the upcoming Sean Connery documentary ticks the box of appealing to the company’s home audience in France as well as having wider international.

“Sean Connery is definitely universal while Stéphanie’s connection to the subject gives it a good anchor in France. That’s a perfect example of something that can speak across audiences,” she says, talking to Deadline just days after the announcement of her appointment.

Career highlights & international mission

The Canadian French documentary veteran has been working as a producer with CAPA since 2017, both directly and occasionally under CAPA label, Films à Cinq, the Paris-based factual content production banner she created with Martin de la Fouchardière.

Documentary feature credits across her 20-year career include Su Rynard’s 2015 work The Messenger, exploring environmental threats to songbirds around the world, which she co-wrote, produced and edited. It premiered at Canada’s Hot Docs festival and was then acquired by Kino Lorber for the U.S.

Under the CAPA umbrella, she was a producer on Ron Chapman’s Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World, as well as Anastasia Trofimova’s Russians at War, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2024.

More recent credits include the 2025 natural history two-parter 13 Hours to Survive, about how sea creatures tackle the challenge of being left high and dry by the tide, which played on Arte and Blue Ant Studio’s Love Nature platform; 2025 six-part, docu-series Marie Antoinette Confidential, coproduced with Banijay Studios France for Canal Plus, and TV docu-movie Tardigrade, the Indestructible Animal, which she also co-wrote.

“I’ve been a producer with CAPA for a few years and was an independent producer previously, both in Canada and in France, so I have built up a big network for making international coproductions… the main reasons that they’ve given me this job is to push the international angle,” says Blake of her new role.

“CAPA is the largest documentary production company in France. It’s really well known, really well established and producing for all the platforms and all the channels,” she continues.

Blake cites true-crime series From Rock Star to Killer, about rock singer Bertrand Cantat, who killed his partner actress Marie Trintignant in 2003, and 2025 docu-drama November 13, Sonia’s Choice as examples of recent CAPA productions that have moved the dial in France.

“From a Rock Star to a Killer was a Netflix series which did really, really well. It was definitely in the top 10 of Netflix documentary series,” she says of the first title, which was released on the platform on March 2025.

The two-part November 13, Sonia’s Choice recounts the true story of a woman at the heart of the hunt for the culprits of the Paris terror attacks on November 13, 2015, who is now living in hiding.

It was broadcast in a primetime slot by state broadcaster France Télévisions on November 13, 2025, as part of its programming to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks in which terrorists killed 130 people and injured many more across the French capital.

“It was really interesting because it was an innovative hybrid film.” Blake says of the docu-drama, directed by David André and starring Carima Amarouche in the titular role. “Docu-drama is definitively one of the interesting areas we want to do more in. They’re working really well right now.”

Blake believes strongly that the CAPA has the content, no-how and connections to expand its international footprint.

“I think that the quality of the CAPA programming is something that could travel even more than it does now, and that’s something that I really, really want to make happen,” she says, adding that working with international partners is also becoming a necessity.

“It’s something we all have to do right now when the industry is so difficult. We have to really, really look for those international partnerships and those ‘sneaky’ ways of financing things. You also need a sense of what’s out there, what the trends are, which is something I have, because I travel to all these markets quite a bit.”

Alongside Sean Connery, The Untold Story, other upcoming CAPA productions that Blake feels have strong international potential include Compost.

Being developed as a hybrid for the French market, it delves into the ecosystem and “drama” of a compost heap, exploring its inhabitants and the roles they play in breaking down human leftovers and garden refuse.

“I have a long-standing experience in science, the environment and the natural world and of course that’s something that lends itself to international,” says Blake, citing titles such as 13 Hours to Survive.

“I am currently working on a film, which is going to be primetime feature documentary for France Télévisions. The entire thing is going to be filmed in a compost heap… it will version and adapt very easily to other markets because composting, technically speaking, is something everyone can do,” she says.

“It’s literally about the drama that happens inside a compost heap. Imagine the wooden boxes at the end of gardens, you open them up and it’s absolutely fascinating. It’s like a jungle in there with these tiny, tiny creatures. In the French version, the compost heap is in the back garden of a fictional family to give a human side to it, but the natural history part of the film can travel anywhere.”

In the backdrop, Blake acknowledges it is a complex time for the documentary sector, with the genre making waves on the festival and awards circuit at the same as it faces funding squeezes.

“There have been different waves. There was a contraction of the North American documentary market a few years ago that seems to have settled in the sense we know where we’re at right now. But recently, we’re seeing more and more crisis within public broadcasters in Europe. We’re definitely feeling that in France, but I think that’s happening all over,” she says.

In spite of the challenges, Blake remains confident in the genre.

“People are always looking for keys to decrypt the world, and the world is just getting scarier and more confusing, so I think there’s always going to be an interest in documentary.”