Series Mania Festival to Host Masterclass with David Chase

PARIS: Among the highlights of the seventh Series Mania Festival is an interview with and career tribute to David Chase, the celebrated showrunner of The Sopranos.

Laurence Herszberg, general director of Forum des Images and founder of Series Mania, announced that this year’s event will be “bigger than ever.” In a special session, Cuba Gooding Jr. will be exploring the character of O.J. Simpson that he plays in FX’s American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. Showrunner Clyde Phillips (Dexter) will be on hand for the world premiere screening of his latest creation, Feed the Beast.

Harlan Coben (The Five) will be at Series Mania to discuss how he adapts his work for the small screen. Frank Spotnitz (The Man in the High Castle) and Stephen Poliakoff (Close to the Enemy) will also be attending the festival. In addition, several key women in the industry will be in attendance, including Leila Bekhti, star of the Nordic thriller Midnight Sun, and the Argentinean director Lucía Puenzo, co-creator of the eco-thriller Cromo.

Series Mania will be taking over two theaters in the UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles movie complex, in addition to its screening rooms in the Forum des Images for the 50-plus series screened during this new edition. The festival will be hosting its Rock ‘n’ Roll opening night event in the legendary Grand Rex cinema in Paris, with a screening of the pilot of Vinyl, the new HBO series from Martin Scorsese.

For the first time, this year Series Mania is organizing an international competition of world premieres, to be judged by a jury headed by Chase, along with four other renowned names involved in series, cinema and culture. It will include eight projects that will have exclusive screenings either before or just after they have been shown in their home territory. Entries are from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Israel, Norway, Sweden and the U.K.