Alors! French TV crew visits to film local life here in Hawaii

A French production company is combing the Islands, planning to film stories about people, places and communities to air on French television.

Match Point Production, which works with France's M6 television network, is here for 2 1/4 weeks and has made arrangements to film a Kahalu'u community group fighting drug use; Philippe Mettout, who came from Paris 25 years ago and started a business on the North Shore; and rangers at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Phillipe Mettout:

Mettout arrived in Hawai'i 25 years ago to surf and eventually opened a surf shop on the North Shore. This will be the third time Mettout will be interviewed for a television feature for French television, he said. But this feature also will include interviews with local lifeguards, a surf instructor and surfers young and old, male and female, Mettout said.

On the North Shore, the crew of four will film Mettout, who owns Planet Surf.

The film crew knows little about surfing, and Mettout said he will tell them about Island life, politics and schools.

But the main message he wants to get across is how surfing is engrained in Hawai'i culture, he said.

M6 is the second-largest television network in France, and Mettout said people there are eager to watch programs about the Islands because they love surfing and Hawai'i.