The French mystery series Anthracite was added to Netflix’s streaming program almost two weeks ago and has remained firmly in the top 10 of the series charts ever since. Behind Anthracite’s cruel and gripping story about an enigmatic cult true eventswhich took place in the French Alps in the 1990s.
That’s what the Netflix hit Anthracite is about
In Anthracite, a small village in the Alps becomes the setting frightening mass suicide of 16 followers of a mysterious sect. Around 30 years later, a murder occurs in the village that is reminiscent of the rituals of the former sect and once again terrifies the locals.
Netflix
Anthracite
The villagers quickly found a suspect: newcomer Jaro (Clément Penhoat), who has already committed a crime. Jaro then has to prove his innocence and meets young Ida (Noémie Schmidt), who is looking for her missing father.
Anthracite: The Sun Templar Sect served as inspiration for the Netflix series
While the plot of the series is fictional, the series creators Fanny Robert and Maxime Berthemy were inspired by the true events surrounding the French Sun Templar sect to inspire. In December 1995, 16 members of the association committed mass suicide or murder in the French Alps near Grenoble. The crime followed two other group deaths that occurred in 1994. In 1997, another event followed with many deaths.
The Netflix series uses this December 1995 incident as starting point of history, in which 16 people died. Police found the bodies of the real Sun Templars aligned in a star formation. Various members were drugged, suffocated and shot before their deaths. Two people present then burned the bodies of others before committing suicide themselves.
Netflix
Anthracite
The Sun Templar sect was founded in 1984 by the alternative medicine doctor Luc Jouret and the jeweler Joseph Di Mambro. She had strong ties to the Rosicrucian Order and the Knights Templar and owned one apocalyptic orientation.
This is one of the things the members believed in after their deaths reincarnated in the star system of Sirius to be able to promote the founding of a new humanity there. The mass suicides and murders are said to have been motivated by this belief. It is still unclear whether individual cases were actually voluntary suicide or murder by other members.
Between 1984 and 1997 the Sun Templars comprised between 300 and 400 core members. The sect collapsed after the final deaths in 1997. Founders Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro died in the second bloody event in 1994.