St. Martin Parish sites to be featured in French TV documentary

St. Martinville – Fascinated that the French language and culture live on in North America, and in particular, in southern Louisiana, Le Grand Tour, a French travel series, is coming to film in St. Martin Parish.
Patrick deCarolis, host of the TV documentary series, invites viewers to join him on “ce voyage autour du monde” – this trip around the world.
The production team will spend most of the month of October and part of November filming in Louisiana and Quebec for the two episodes entitled “Amérique française” (French America).
French speakers in St. Martinville and Arnaudville will be featured in the upcoming program.
Two members of the production team, Stéphanie Trastour, a journalist, and Yohan Giaume, were recently in the parish to scout out locations to film and French speakers to interview.
They spent some time with Mavis Frugé, Rebecca Henry, and other volunteers from NuNu’s Arts Collective in Arnaudville.
A special Table Française, beginning at 9 a.m. on Oct. 12 at NuNu’s, will launch the beginning of the filming in St. Martin Parish.
Trastour and Giaume also met with St. Martinville Mayor Thomas Nelson, city Main Street manager Danielle Fontenette and tourism coordinator Jessie Thibodeaux.
The Evangeline Oak and the Acadian Memorial will take part in telling the story of the Acadian genocide. Also discussed were the possibility of filming some sequences with the cooking of okra as well as cane season.
In addition to filming in St. Martin Parish, the crew will be filming in Terrebonne Parish with the Houma Indians and in New Orleans.
Other filming dates have not yet been finalized. For more information on the series, visit www.legrandtour.fr.