SERIES MANIA: The path from film to TV is a well-trodden one and at Series Mania in Lille this week, 10 fresh television projects from established filmmakers will be unveiled as part of the Seriesmakers initiative.

European content company Beta Group and the Series Mania Institute have unveiled the 10 finalists of their joint initiative Seriesmakers. The 10 series will be part of the Series Mania Forum programme this week and the winner will be announced on March 24 at the Co-Pro Pitching Award session.

Seriesmakers is a joint initiative of Series Mania Institute and Beta Group created to highlight feature film directors who venture into the world of series. Last year it was won by the Spanish project The Interregnum, presented by the Spanish creator, director and screenwriter Simón Casal and Spanish-based Uruguayan producer Mariela Besuievsky.

The Seriesmakers project is headed by Marianne Guillon, director of Series Mania Institute, and Ferdinand Dohna, head of content and coproduction of Beta. It was created by Laurence Herszberg, general director of Series Mania, and Koby Gal Raday, CEO of Janeiro Studios, and first launched in 2022.

Each project is presented by pairs of director-producer or director-screenwriter from all over the world. Among the 10 finalists this year are projects from Brazil, Spain, Canada, France, Ireland, the Czech Republic and South Africa. All have received mentorships from Gabor Krigler (Hungary), Donna Sharpe (UK), Angeli MacFarlane (UK) and Mariano Baselga (Spain).

The 10 finalists are:

Cesium 137
(Brazil, 4×60′, drama/based on real events)
From screenwriter-director Fabio Meira and producer Tatiana Leite (left), Cesium 137 investigates the tragic accident in Goiânia, Brazil, and the chain of mistakes made by the highest levels of public authority, which, together with the ignorance of ordinary citizens, led to the second largest radiation accident in the world, destroying families and leaving unhealed wounds.

Chachacha!
(Canada, 8×30′, drama/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Alison Fairweather Murray (left) and producer Jennifer Weiss. With her blood pressure rising through the roof, a woman face how disconnected she is from herself, resorting to Latin dance, not for fun, but for survival, and unleashing chaos for her family.

Fortune Cookie
(Spain, 6×45′, thriller/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Adrián Saba (left) and producer Fernando Sánchez-Cabezudo. When a delivery girl crosses a secret dimension in the basement of a Chinese restaurant in Madrid’s Chinatown and disappears, her mother begins a tireless search that uncovers a drug trafficking operation between two families and two restaurants secretly connected by an underground portal.

Game Knights of the Middle Age
(Canada, 10×30′, mystery/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Craig Wallace and producer Sarah Timmins (left). A twisted mystery and murder comedy about middle-aged members of a suburban role-playing group in the style of Dungeons & Dragons, who must solve the murder of their game master, avoid taking the blame for their death or becoming the next victims.

Ghosts of Marseille
(France, 6×52′, criminal political thriller)
From screenwriter-director Nicolas Silhol (left) and producer Clémence Lavigne. A brutal attack on present-day Marseille forces an intrepid trainee journalist and a disenchanted policeman to face the ghosts of the bloody summer of 1973, and throws them into a race against time to prevent history from repeating itself.

Humdrum
(Ireland, 6×40′, crime/drama)
From screenwriter-director-producer Patricia Kelly. A freelance court transcriber, whose life is a disaster, interferes inappropriately in the cases she transcribes to seek justice for the victims, but quickly loses sight of what is right and what is very wrong.

Kris
(Czech Republic, 6×30′, drama)
From co-directors/co-screenwriters David Tišer and Rozalie Kohoutová (left), with the latter also producing. When Zojko and Ricco, two Roma boys from radically different social worlds, fall in love, their relationship endangers the people closest to them. Both will have to make deep sacrifices to discover who they really are.

Lot 55 – Dorothy Stang: A Death Foretold
(Brazil, 5×60′, political thriller)
From screenwriter-director Felipe Mucci and producer Alfredo Manevy (left). In one of the most important trials of the 21st century, a young prosecutor races against time to discover the culprits of the murder of an American nun in the Amazon rainforest before becoming the next victim.

Sunday Service
(South Africa, 12×30′, comedy)
From director Samkelo Makhanya and screenwriter-producer Nomvuselelo Dlamini (left). When a deaf worship leader tricks her church into filming a documentary about her “return,” what begins as a vanity project crumbles into a chaotic campaign of faith to save the building from eviction.

The Tree
(France, 6×25′, fantasy/thriller)
From screenwriter-director Akihiro Hata (left) and producer Clément Duboin. An ancient intelligent forest materialises the unconscious of those who enter it to defend themselves from the Euroloop railway project. Anna, deputy manager of the Euroloop project, is soon torn between her mission and the defence of the forest, without knowing the true nature of the project.

SERIES MANIA: The path from film to TV is a well-trodden one and at Series Mania in Lille this week, 10 fresh television projects from established filmmakers will be unveiled as part of the Seriesmakers initiative.

European content company Beta Group and the Series Mania Institute have unveiled the 10 finalists of their joint initiative Seriesmakers. The 10 series will be part of the Series Mania Forum programme this week and the winner will be announced on March 24 at the Co-Pro Pitching Award session.

Seriesmakers is a joint initiative of Series Mania Institute and Beta Group created to highlight feature film directors who venture into the world of series. Last year it was won by the Spanish project The Interregnum, presented by the Spanish creator, director and screenwriter Simón Casal and Spanish-based Uruguayan producer Mariela Besuievsky.

The Seriesmakers project is headed by Marianne Guillon, director of Series Mania Institute, and Ferdinand Dohna, head of content and coproduction of Beta. It was created by Laurence Herszberg, general director of Series Mania, and Koby Gal Raday, CEO of Janeiro Studios, and first launched in 2022.

Each project is presented by pairs of director-producer or director-screenwriter from all over the world. Among the 10 finalists this year are projects from Brazil, Spain, Canada, France, Ireland, the Czech Republic and South Africa. All have received mentorships from Gabor Krigler (Hungary), Donna Sharpe (UK), Angeli MacFarlane (UK) and Mariano Baselga (Spain).

The 10 finalists are:

Cesium 137
(Brazil, 4×60′, drama/based on real events)
From screenwriter-director Fabio Meira and producer Tatiana Leite (left), Cesium 137 investigates the tragic accident in Goiânia, Brazil, and the chain of mistakes made by the highest levels of public authority, which, together with the ignorance of ordinary citizens, led to the second largest radiation accident in the world, destroying families and leaving unhealed wounds.

Chachacha!
(Canada, 8×30′, drama/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Alison Fairweather Murray (left) and producer Jennifer Weiss. With her blood pressure rising through the roof, a woman face how disconnected she is from herself, resorting to Latin dance, not for fun, but for survival, and unleashing chaos for her family.

Fortune Cookie
(Spain, 6×45′, thriller/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Adrián Saba (left) and producer Fernando Sánchez-Cabezudo. When a delivery girl crosses a secret dimension in the basement of a Chinese restaurant in Madrid’s Chinatown and disappears, her mother begins a tireless search that uncovers a drug trafficking operation between two families and two restaurants secretly connected by an underground portal.

Game Knights of the Middle Age
(Canada, 10×30′, mystery/comedy)
From screenwriter-director Craig Wallace and producer Sarah Timmins (left). A twisted mystery and murder comedy about middle-aged members of a suburban role-playing group in the style of Dungeons & Dragons, who must solve the murder of their game master, avoid taking the blame for their death or becoming the next victims.

Ghosts of Marseille
(France, 6×52′, criminal political thriller)
From screenwriter-director Nicolas Silhol (left) and producer Clémence Lavigne. A brutal attack on present-day Marseille forces an intrepid trainee journalist and a disenchanted policeman to face the ghosts of the bloody summer of 1973, and throws them into a race against time to prevent history from repeating itself.

Humdrum
(Ireland, 6×40′, crime/drama)
From screenwriter-director-producer Patricia Kelly. A freelance court transcriber, whose life is a disaster, interferes inappropriately in the cases she transcribes to seek justice for the victims, but quickly loses sight of what is right and what is very wrong.

Kris
(Czech Republic, 6×30′, drama)
From co-directors/co-screenwriters David Tišer and Rozalie Kohoutová (left), with the latter also producing. When Zojko and Ricco, two Roma boys from radically different social worlds, fall in love, their relationship endangers the people closest to them. Both will have to make deep sacrifices to discover who they really are.

Lot 55 – Dorothy Stang: A Death Foretold
(Brazil, 5×60′, political thriller)
From screenwriter-director Felipe Mucci and producer Alfredo Manevy (left). In one of the most important trials of the 21st century, a young prosecutor races against time to discover the culprits of the murder of an American nun in the Amazon rainforest before becoming the next victim.

Sunday Service
(South Africa, 12×30′, comedy)
From director Samkelo Makhanya and screenwriter-producer Nomvuselelo Dlamini (left). When a deaf worship leader tricks her church into filming a documentary about her “return,” what begins as a vanity project crumbles into a chaotic campaign of faith to save the building from eviction.

The Tree
(France, 6×25′, fantasy/thriller)
From screenwriter-director Akihiro Hata (left) and producer Clément Duboin. An ancient intelligent forest materialises the unconscious of those who enter it to defend themselves from the Euroloop railway project. Anna, deputy manager of the Euroloop project, is soon torn between her mission and the defence of the forest, without knowing the true nature of the project.