This Sunday, December 28, 2025, at 9:10 PM, France 3 launches Dolomites: Trapped at the Peaks, a Dolomites thriller adapted from the Italian series Black Out (Rai 1 / RaiPlay). After an avalanche, hotel guests find themselves in a mountain-bound closed setting, cut off from the world, while a past linked to the Camorra resurfaces. Led by Alessandro Preziosi and Rike Schmid, the fiction unfolds in eight episodes. Three are broadcast tonight, with the rest coming on January 4, 2026.
What to know before starting the first episode
The series arrives in France under an explicit title. However, it already has a history on the other side of the Alps. In Italy, it is titled Black Out – Vite sospese and was broadcast on Rai 1 then available on RaiPlay. France 3 is now taking up this mountain tale, designed to be watched over a few evenings.
The end-of-year programming is no coincidence. During this period, channels look for "atmospheric" fictions, easy to join. They must be sufficiently paced to retain an audience that zaps more easily. Here, the argument holds in one sentence: an isolated hotel, a natural disaster, and a group of people forced to coexist as trust disappears.
Practical Information (France)
- Title (France): Dolomites: Trapped at the Peaks
- Original Title (Italy): Black Out – Vite sospese
- Format: 8 episodes
- TV Broadcast: France 3 — Sunday December 28, 2025 (episodes 1 to 3), then Sunday January 4, 2026 (continuation)
- Streaming: france.tv (France); RaiPlay (Italy)
A high-altitude closed setting, between family drama and thriller
It all begins as a parenthesis. It is Christmas Eve. The valley is full, families cross paths, hotels are fully booked. One of the central characters, Giovanni Lo Bianco, arrives with his children: a man in a hurry, used to controlling his environment, who wants to offer a "normal" stay despite past fractures.
On the other side of the hall, Claudia Schneider is not there to rest. A doctor, she has been living under protection with her daughter for years. She carries a specific fear, that of being found after witnessing a murder linked to the Camorra. In a hotel, one blends into the crowd. Until the day the crowd no longer exists.
The shift is brutal: an earthquake triggers an avalanche. Road cut off, tunnel blocked, lines silent. The mountain closes its door. The series then settles into its most effective mechanism: isolation makes every decision heavier, and every word more suspect.
The closed setting works here on two levels. There is the material urgency — heating, eating, caring, holding on. And there is the moral urgency: deciding whom to believe, whom to follow, whom to protect. Proximity reveals temperaments. It also creates scapegoats, as soon as fear becomes a method.
A recent Italian series, imported for the holidays
In Italy, the first season of Black Out was broadcast in January–February 2023 on Rai 1. Its start marked the audiences, which was enough to establish the idea of a sequel. The interest for France 3 is obvious: to offer the French public a fiction already tested, without presenting it as an artificial "event."
This type of importation also has an editorial advantage: it broadens the range of series offered in prime time, long dominated by French, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian productions. Italy, on its side, has consolidated a tradition of popular fictions. These are often built on a very identified setting — a city, a region, a landscape — and on an accessible plot.
In Dolomites: Trapped at the Peaks, the setting is not just a backdrop. It imposes a rhythm and a logic. An avalanche is not a "twist": it is a constraint that changes bodies, time, relationships. This materiality speaks easily to an audience. Indeed, they do not need to know the codes of Italian television to enter the story.
The Dolomites filmed as a character
The filming took place mainly in Trentino (province of Trento), with passages through San Martino di Castrozza (Trentino), Canal San Bovo (Vanoi Valley) or Sagron Mis (Trentino), and in the Vanoi Valley (Dolomites). This choice gives a particular texture to the images: one feels the depth of the valleys, the density of the snow, the fragility of a road.
Some scenes were also filmed in Rome and Naples, necessary for the criminal aspect of the story. This alternation avoids the effect of total confinement. Indeed, it is understood that the threat does not only arise from the mountain. It has older, more urban, and sometimes more violent roots.
Beyond the dramaturgy, the setting refers to a territory recognized for its heritage value. The Dolomites have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009. This recognition reminds us of the fragile balance between tourist attractiveness, local life, and environmental protection. The series does not make it a discourse, but the background is enough: in such a powerful landscape, the question of human impact is never far away.
A transalpine cast, led by Alessandro Preziosi
The series relies on a driving trio. Alessandro Preziosi plays Giovanni Lo Bianco, the pivot of the mountain mystery: a deliberately contrasting character, protective and opaque, capable of sincere impulses as well as difficult decisions. His performance is on a tightrope, that of a man who wants to regain control. However, it is at the moment when the world escapes him.
Rike Schmid lends Claudia Schneider a more interior energy. Doctor, mother, protected witness: her character accumulates responsibilities and threats. In a closed setting, these layers become explosive. The question is not only "will she be found?" but "what will she reveal to save her daughter?"
Marco Rossetti brings a more frontal dynamic, with a character that destabilizes the group’s balance. In this type of story, the tension does not only come from the external danger. It comes from how each justifies their actions, and how others interpret them.
Around them, the cast forms a credible community: hotel staff, locals, tourists. This is essential for a closed setting: if the audience does not believe in the group, the suspense collapses. Here, the social and generational mix creates constant frictions, and thus reasons to stay.
A direction that favors progression through revelations
The direction is by Riccardo Donna, with a tense and progressive staging: alternating group scenes (where fear circulates) and more intimate scenes (where secrets are laid down). The editing rarely allows a situation to close completely. A question asked opens another.
The writing is based on a principle: the natural disaster is not the end of the world, it is the beginning of a revelation. In a hotel, one can play a role. When the hotel becomes a prison, playing a role comes at a cost. This logic gives the series a thriller tone, without giving up a more classic family drama.
The result is a story that progresses without multiplying effects. The setting already does a lot. The tension is more nestled in behaviors: who takes power? who refuses to obey? who remains silent when speaking would save others? These are simple questions, but they are formidable when the snow prevents escape.
Season 2 of Black Out: already broadcast in Italy, not yet announced in France
The success of season 1 led to a season 2, broadcast in January–February 2025 in Italy. It extends the universe and broadens certain stakes, introducing new power dynamics.
In France, at the time of this first broadcast on France 3, no date has been officially announced for the sequel. This is a common choice: a channel evaluates the audience’s reception before committing to additional programming. For viewers, the good news is that season 1 can be watched as a nearly complete story. However, it leaves sufficiently clear openings to arouse anticipation.
Why this format works in prime time
Mountain series have an immediate asset: they create a world in a few shots. The cold, the night, the snow: everything becomes language. And the closed setting offers a clear promise: we will observe a group under pressure until each one reveals themselves.
During the holiday season, this recipe has particular effectiveness. We are more willing to watch several episodes in a row. We watch together. We comment. The series, designed to be followed "in sequence," fits these habits.
Dolomites: Trapped at the Peaks is also part of a European circulation of fictions. The French public is already familiar with Nordic thrillers, British dramas, Spanish crime stories. Italy adds a different color: a sense of contained melodrama, and a way of anchoring the criminal threat in personal stories.
To remember
Dolomites: Trapped at the Peaks offers a mountain thriller where isolation acts as a revealer. See you on December 28, 2025, at 9:10 PM on France 3 (three episodes), then January 4, 2026 for the continuation. An adaptation of Black Out relies on a powerful setting and progressive suspense. Moreover, the characters reveal their secrets over the episodes, thus forming the true ridge line.