EXCLUSIVE: Florence Longpré’s festival favorite Empathy has found new buyers in Europe and also hit screens in Australia. The series is an original for Canadian streamer Crave and Canal+ in France, who have already jointly greenlit Season 2.
Longpré (Audrey’s Back) created the show and also plays the lead, a young psychiatrist-criminologist called Suzanne. The show follows her after she takes a job at a secure psychiatric facility. Facing the most complex cases, and while struggling with her own trauma, Suzanne turns to unconventional methods. Her colleagues struggle with her approach to cases, except for security office Mortimer (Thomas Ngijol), with whom she bonds.
The Guillaume Lonergan-directed series has just bowed on SBS in Australia and the Movistar Plus+ streaming platform in Spain. Elsewhere, Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais has snagged the rights for Portugal for its TVCine Edition channel. Greek streamer Cinobo has also acquired the series.
Beta Film, which also sold Audrey’s Back, handles distribution on the Trio Orange-produced series. With Australia, Spain, Greece and Portugal sales in the bag, we hear deals for Asia and LatAm are being negotiated.
Empathy has been one of the most-watched local originals on Crave, the Canadian streamer that is on a tear with this show and smash hit Heated Rivalry. In France it hit 10M views within two months of launching on Canal+.
Empathy has proven to be a festival darling. Premiering at last year’s Series Mania, the French-language show became the first drama out of Quebec to play in competition at the event. It went on to win the festival’s Audience Award after receiving a 13-minute standing ovation. At Serielizados Fest it garnered a trio of awards, won Best Series at the Venice TV Awards, and was nominated for Best Series at the Rose D’Or Awards. Looking ahead, the series is currently nominated at BANFF Rockie Awards 2026.
A former Deadline Global Breakout, Longpré previously broke down the lead character of Suzanne, who has her own experience of mental health issues. “She knows the suffering that comes with that,” she told us. “That’s a reason she has this sensitivity for the patients. She was sick and endured a lot of suffering. She cries a lot, she laughs a lot, and in one way she doesn’t care. That’s a kind of freedom, and that was also very cool to play.”
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