12:43 Jul 7, 2010 

I want to thank all answerers for your contributions. I imagine that "fiction lourde" was originally named thus because of the longer duration of the films (50-90 minutes instead of 20-30) and because the films concentrated on weighty fictional accounts, typically serial treatments of great novels. But the genre seems to cover more than that these days, and not knowing the exact specialization of the person whose bio I was translating, I needed the broadest possible term that would be understood by English speakers everywhere. I therefore used the very generic "television film" in my translation. In another context, perhaps TV drama or TV drama series or made-for-TV movie would be correct. Unfortunately, ProZ has never come up with a way to give credit to everyone who provides KudoZ help. I found the discussion valuable, though, and wish to thank all of you for your comments and your research.