Literary career Frédéric Lepage is a best-selling author of novels such as
La Fin du septième jour or
La Mémoire interdite, published in numerous countries including France, Germany, Japan and Greece. He has also written essays on various subjects from science (
Les Jumeaux: enquête) to gastronomy (
A table avec Chirac) with a detour for an anthology of the world's most beautiful prayers. which at this writing has four volumes:
Le Camp des éléphants,
La Malédiction de Mara,
Le Masque du serpent and
Piège de sang. This series won several awards and literary prizes. In March 2011 his novel
Le Colloque des bonobos (Editions Balland) was published. This work asks the question: are chimpanzees and human genetically similar to the extent that they must be placed on the same evolutionary branch? The author imagined a conference organized to respond to the question. Experts from Africa debating the question are all... chimpanzees. They must decide if they will accept to become brothers to humans. This novel is based on scientific research validated by Sandrine Prat, paleontologist in charge of research at the
French National Centre for Scientific Research. As an editor at Éditions Michel Lafon, Frédéric Lepage supervised the publication of
Julien Lepers' book, "Les fautes de français, plus jamais" in 2012. Then came, in 2014, by the same author,
Les mauvaises manières, ça suffit!. In 2016, his novel
Il Congresso delle scimmie was published by Editions Robin (Italy). In 2017, Frédéric Lepage met Alexandre Lafont, a 20-year-old epileptic on the verge of becoming a YouTube star by talking about his illness with humor and self-mockery. He suggested that he write his story with him, and that of this illness that affects 800,000 French people each year. The book,
Je suis Epilepticman, was published in April 2018 by Éditions Plon. September 2019: publication of
Le Concile des singes in digital edition. 2021: publication of the novel
Criminal Kingdom (in ) by Éditions Plon, which won the Prize for the best French-language novel 2021 at the Polar Festival of Cognac. His novel ''Promets moi d'avoir peur'' was published by Éditions Robert Laffont in March 2023, then by Pocket Publishing in 2024. In September 2024, his novel
Plus fort que la nuit was published by Éditions Taurnada. Frederic Lepage's novel
Le Livre des sacrifiés is to be published by Robert Laffont Publishing in January 2025.
Audiovisual career Frédéric Lepage began his career as a television writer and producer at
TF1. Following a stint at
Antenne 2, he created his own company XL Productions. The company quickly grew and was innovative notably in the domain of documentary films. The company produced a wide range of programming: giant concerts (
La Fête de la Musique for
TF1), TV variety shows, literary magazines () or the game show . In 1990 the company launched the children's program
Disney Club with
The Walt Disney Company. Later, Frédéric Lepage ran the documentary department of the Group
Tele Images Productions. Frédéric Lepage makes his mark in the domain of large scale documentary series, such as in 1996 with
Untamed Africa, a team effort with the director . This twelve-hour series, touted by reviewers, was a success in more than one hundred countries. Other
Untamed followed, forming a cycle of close to sixty films and one of the biggest commercial successes in the domain of wildlife films:
Untamed Amazonia,
Untamed Australia,
Untamed Asia,
Untamed America. Concurrently with his
Untamed or previous to them, Frédéric Lepage wrote and produced other series such as
Les Sanctuaires sauvages,
Tant qu’il y aura des bêtes directed by ,
Les Nouveaux sanctuaires,
Blue Beyond,
Les Nuits sauvages,
Super Plants and
Genesis II et l’homme créa la nature, directed by and . Artists such as
Anggun or actors
John Hurt,
Lambert Wilson,
Pierre Arditi,
Brian Cox and
Tcheky Karyo collaborated on these projects. In 2005, Frédéric Lepage wrote and produced
Brûlez Rome ! a docu-fiction that takes the audience to Rome behind the scenes in the time of Nero's empire. This production featured thousands of supernumerary actors and a meticulous reconstruction of first century Rome erected in the Tunisian desert. In 2009 and 2010, Frédéric Lepage wrote and produced
Extinctions, a six-hour international documentary coproduction on the mechanisms of the extinction of several emblematic species. This series success led him to write and produce the sequel in six episodes, entitled
Saved from Extinction. In 2011, he wrote and produced
Last Chance Tiger and in 2012
Six Feet Under the Savannah,
Requiem for an Elephant, ''Norin's Ark
and The Funny Side of Science''. Frédéric Lepage is also the author-director of a successful political film,
A table avec les politiques, which depicts how we can deduct politicians’ eating habits from their ideological orientations. Another film in the same series,
Political Animals was aired in 2010 on
France 3. The group led by Frédéric Lepage, comprising the companies Jukurpa Media, FL Concepts & co and Stratus Factory, bought the press agency Interscoop in 2010 which was created in 1983 by Frédéric Laffont and Christophe de Ponfilly. Frédéric Lepage also owns a musical publishing company, A440 Publishing.
Fiction Released in France in December 2008,
Sunny and the Elephant is Frédéric Lepage's first feature film. A sweeping adventure film destined for international and family audiences. It was shot regions of Thailand near Burma. The soundtrack was composed by
Joe Hisaishi. In 2022, Frédéric Lepage created, with Caroline Glorion and Marc Eisenchteter, the concept of , a collection of films for
France Télévisions, and the screenplay for its first episode, entitled
Rouge sang. A Mercer/Federation Entertainment production (Thorunn Anspach and Olivier Brémond), with
Sylvie Testud and Samuel Labarthe, which ranked first in the France 2 ratings on April 8, 2023. Due to this success, France Télévisions then commissioned the second film in the collection. This second film,
Envie de meurtre, broadcast on February 24, 2024, also topped the ratings. A third film,
Guet apens, was shot during summer 2024. Frédéric Lepage's musical show,
Marcel & Reynaldo, which tells the story of the romantic, then friendly, relationship between
Marcel Proust and the composer
Reynaldo Hahn, was created at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell on April 20, 2023, with Thomas Marfoglia in the role of Reynaldo Hahn, and Jean-Christophe Brétignière or Jean-Baptiste Carnoye. In 2024, Frédéric Lepage wrote a show for Magloire Delcros Varaud entitled ''Prière d'aimer'', performed at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell. == Activities in Asia ==