The next season of Koh Lanta promises to be more strategic than ever. Launched on Tuesday February 21 at 9:10 p.m. on TF1, this new edition will be placed under the sign of “sacred fire”. Filming took place from August 9 to September 17, in the Caramoan region of the eastern Philippines, and the production was inspired by a local myth to introduce a new rule…
“A legend says that a God hid his power in the bowels of the Mayon volcano, says producer Julien Magne. In the show, the power of the sacred fire is contained in a talisman, which we had carved on site in the volcanic stones. » An individual game will allow one of the adventurers to obtain it from the first day. If his tribe goes to the council, the talisman grants immunity: he can therefore use it for his own benefit or to protect a teammate. “If it is the other tribe that goes to the council, then the holder of the talisman goes to the opposing camp where he can discuss, take the temperature, interfere in the strategies”, specifies the producer. More crunchy still: he will attend the council in question and will protect the adventurer of his choice.
“Disturbed strategies and three-band games”
Even if it benefits someone else, the person who possesses the talisman recovers it after each advice, and they keep it… Until their team loses a test of comfort. If necessary, she must offer this amulet with formidable power to a member of the opposite tribe. “This gives disturbed strategies, with several shots, games with two or three cushions that some will play wonderfully and others will suffer,” warns Julien Magne.
He adds: “The game is really open. The best way to realize this is that 80% of the adventurers eliminated on the councils fell from their chairs, or rather from their logs”, because they did not suspect that they were threatened. Moreover, in addition to the talisman, it will be necessary to take into account the necklaces of immunities and the “secret weapons” (allowing a double vote or a diversion of vote, for example) hidden on the camps.
“Sometimes, during filming, we anticipate what may happen because we have information on what is going on in the camps. But, with the talisman, it happened that we were disconcerted. We were unable to predict what was going to happen at the council a few minutes before the start of the discussion, ”says Denis Brogniart.
The host notes that this season there is “a release of strategy”: “Never has the game been so present. The adventurers enjoyed playing with different interpretations of the rules, different ways of justifying their ability to be a strategist at one time or another, to join one group or another. It amused us a lot. »
A cast with varied profiles
The adventurers will be twenty in number. Ten women and ten men, aged 22 to 56, from France, but also from Switzerland and Belgium. “We happened to do castings with more athletic profiles. There, we changed our gear a bit, we came back to what makes the salt of the show: the diversity of profiles, ”notes producer Alexia Laroche-Joubert. “All walks of life, all socio-cultural and professional backgrounds are represented, informs Denis Brogniart. There is a cheese maker, a subway driver, a dog training specialist…”
The adventurers will be divided into two teams which will not be formed on the first day but the next day. All will spend an afternoon and a night on the same camp… “Without this period of time, the chiefs of the tribes generally choose according to the physique, the potential of each and each one… There, they will have taken the time to discuss and choices can also be made on affect,” suggests Denis Brogniart. There will therefore be a little heart to counterbalance the strategic brains.