The Camino de Santiago becomes here more than a film set. Around Yann Samuell’s movie, the investigation follows the trail of a sensitive source of funding. Credits: Jorge Luis Ojeda Flota / Unsplash.
An investigation published Thursday, June 18, 2026 by Radio France’s investigative unit documents the arrival of money from Pierre-Édouard Stérin (Wikipedia) around the film Compostelle, released on April 1. The file does not demonstrate any influence on the screenplay, but it sheds light on a financial circuit that has become sensitive: Otium, Wonder Films, the Fonds du bien commun and the Périclès ecosystem.
What the Radio France Investigation Reveals
The central point of the Franceinfo investigation is a chronology. It reads more clearly in four stages:
- July 2023: according to Radio France, Wonder Films received €159,000 from the Fonds du bien commun, a philanthropic structure created by Pierre-Édouard Stérin;
- November 2023: Otium took a 49.9% stake in Wonder Films for €1 million, still according to Radio France;
- last quarter of 2025: Nathanaël La Combe, head of Wonder Films, bought back those shares;
- April 1, 2026: Compostelle was released in theaters after Wonder Films participated in the film’s financing.
In the meantime, Compostelle moved forward. Yann Samuell’s film, led by Alexandra Lamy and inspired by the Seuil association, opened on April 1, 2026. AlloCiné now credits it with 1,188,262 admissions in France, an order of magnitude consistent with the more than 1.2 million viewers mentioned by Radio France and by producer Nathanaël La Combe in the press.
Caution is essential: Radio France does not write that Pierre-Édouard Stérin directly financed the shoot or dictated its content. The investigation instead describes a chain of capital around the production company that participated in the film. It is this chain, and its lack of transparency for the artistic team, that gives the file its public significance.
Wonder Films, Otium and the Fonds du bien commun
In the financial map drawn by Radio France, Wonder Films occupies the pivotal position. The company joined the project at the beginning of 2023, while the initial producers were seeking funds. A few months later, according to the investigation, the Fonds du bien commun intervened, then Otium took a significant minority stake in Wonder Films. Pierre-Édouard Stérin, however, disputes to Radio France the idea that the Fonds du bien commun financed Wonder Films or the films produced by that company. Nathanaël La Combe contests, in his responses to Radio France, any ideological proximity with Pierre-Édouard Stérin. He explains that he was looking for a financial partner and says he discovered the political dimension of the Périclès project when L’Humanité revealed it in July 2024. He also says he ended the capital association to avoid any confusion with that political initiative.
The disagreement also concerns the €159,000. Pierre-Édouard Stérin tells Radio France that the Fonds du bien commun did not finance Wonder Films nor the films produced by that company. Radio France, for its part, relies on minutes dated October 24, 2023, reproduced as an image in its article, which mention that sum. Lacking direct access to the full original documents, this point must remain attributed to the investigative unit’s reporting.
The Artistic Team Says They Were Unaware of the Ownership Structure
The issue becomes more delicate when one moves from the companies back to the film. According to Radio France, Page Films, director Yann Samuell, the artistic team and Alexandra Lamy were not aware of Otium’s stake in Wonder Films. Nathanaël La Combe acknowledges to Radio France that he did not deem it necessary to communicate about his company’s shareholding.
This distinction matters. It avoids turning a financing question into an accusation about the content of Compostelle. The film tells a story of repair centered on walking and reintegration. The available sources do not allow asserting that its screenplay was shaped by Pierre-Édouard Stérin or by Périclès. They do show, however, that a mainstream film presented as unifying ended up linked to structures whose political activity is now under scrutiny.
In an interview published by Le Figaro a few days before the investigation, Nathanaël La Combe defended the idea of cinema as a place of gathering and repair. Radio France also notes that he is working on projects with spiritual or religious tones, including a fiction about Charles de Foucauld. Again, the issue is not to infer an automatic ideological line, but to question the transparency of funding when a producer claims the power of stories.
Why Périclès Changes the Reading of the File
The name Périclès gives the affair a political dimension. L’Humanité revealed in July 2024 the existence of this project, presented as an initiative endowed with €150 million over ten years to support cultural, intellectual and political actions of the radical right. The Observatory of Multinationals then mapped Pierre-Édouard Stérin’s economic empire, highlighting the interconnection between Otium, Odyssée Impact, the Fonds du bien commun, Périclès and investments in media or production companies.
This mapping does not demonstrate a strategy of influence behind each isolated investment. It does, however, document an economic environment where media, cultural or audiovisual activities have a place, including Wonder Films. For a reader, the useful point is therefore not only the amount of an investment, but the possible place of that investment within a larger whole, without turning this context into proof of intent.
The institutional strand reinforces this reading. The Senate video dated May 28, 2026 records the hearing of Arnaud Rérolle, director general of Périclès, before an inquiry commission dedicated to the private financing of public policy. Public Sénat summarizes this hearing as an exchange on the genesis of Périclès, its missions and its ties to Pierre-Édouard Stérin.
A New Audiovisual Company
One recent element extends the file. Radio France indicates that Pierre-Édouard Stérin created on March 31, 2026 a company called Films et audiovisuel rive droite, presented as a subsidiary of Périclès. Questioned by the investigative unit, Arnaud Rérolle refused to comment on future productions. Pierre-Édouard Stérin, for his part, says he does not know this company, according to Radio France, while the investigation links it to his environment. No concrete project carried by this structure is known at this stage in the cited sources.
This creation does not directly concern the production of Compostelle, already released the following day. It rather signals the assumed, or at least structured, interest of this ecosystem in audiovisuals. In an industry where production companies, co-producers, distributors and financiers add up, the public almost never sees the paths taken by the money. The Compostelle case forces those paths to be examined.
What the File Does Not Allow Concluding
The first limit is factual. The complete documents of Wonder Films, Otium, Films et audiovisuel rive droite and the minutes cited by Radio France are not all directly accessible in the open sources used here. The most precise amounts and dates must therefore remain attributed to Radio France or to the bodies that document them.
The second limit is artistic. Nothing in the sources consulted allows writing that Compostelle is a politically commissioned film. The director and the lead actress are described by Radio France as outside the financial arrangement. The debate is about transparency and about the capacity of a politically identified investor to insert itself into cultural circuits without that presence being visible at the time of release.
The third limit concerns the responses. Nathanaël La Combe rejects the idea of ideological alignment with Pierre-Édouard Stérin. Pierre-Édouard Stérin contests or relativizes certain reported ties. These answers do not close the matter, but they require treating it as a dossier of flows, structures and governance, not as a trial of intent.
A Question of Cultural Transparency
The Compostelle case summarizes a tension that goes beyond a single film. French cinema is a collective art, but also a complex financial assembly. When money comes from politically identified actors, artistic independence is not measured only by the script or on set. It also depends on the information given to partners, to teams and, ultimately, to the audience.
That is where the affair becomes of public interest. It does not say that the public was manipulated by a film. It shows that a popular success can become, after the fact, the revealer of a blind spot: who finances the stories that circulate, through which companies, with what transparency and with what guarantees of autonomy for those who make them.