Series Mania Forum Selects for Co-Pro Pitching Sessions

Series Mania Forum has revealed the 15 projects of 16 selected to be part of the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, set to take place on March 19.

The top 15 selected titles include Antilia (France); A True Novel (Japan/U.S.); Eurovision Murder Mystery (France/Germany); Food, Love, Faith (Israel); Issak (Japan/Germany); Judgement of Solomon (Bulgaria); Kiss My Feet (Finland/Netherlands); Nanga Parbat (France); and The Art of Magdalene (Poland/Ireland). More selections are The Left Hand of Venus (Greece), The Odesa Wrestlers (Norway), Thirst (Canada), Our People (Slovakia), Vatican (Italy) and White Ties (Germany).

The 16th project, Witness 36, will be presented but excluded from the competition for the grand prize.

An international jury of industry professionals will determine the best project among the 15 projects and prize the Best Project Award €50,000 ($54,000) to help develop the winning series. This year, the 15 projects were selected from 413 applications from 57 countries, including four new territories: Mexico, Cameroon, Panama and Chile.

Laurence Herszberg, founder and general director of Series Mania, said: “Since its inception in 2013, the goal of the Forum’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions has been to help the high-end European and International drama projects find potential financial partners. Given the illustrious list of titles which have received their start at the Forum, we know for a fact that this works. This year we have seen a significant increase in projects coming from South America, especially from Brazil and Mexico and have noted the emergence of Asia as a newcomer highlighted by the presence of two Japanese companies in this year’s selection.

“Also, this year we received a number of stories inspired by true events and many projects based on strong IPs. While we saw a decline in dystopian themes in favor of more realistic projects and found that the submissions favored more traditional thrillers with an increasing number of dramedies. We look forward to unveiling the winner of the best project award with €50,000 on March 19 in Lille.”