Event Preview: Series Mania

Series Mania is taking over Lille again from March 20 to 27, with the Series Mania Forum program running from March 24 to 26.

The festival this year will open with the world premiere of Disney+’s The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, with showrunner Bruce Miller and other members of the creative team in attendance. That is just the beginning of a packed program that aims to highlight premium international content.

For the festival, 51 series were selected from 375 submitted titles from 64 countries. Among those, “we have noticed several trends in form and content,” says Laurence Herszberg, managing director of Series Mania. “While this year has seen an undeniable contraction in the sector (fewer series, shorter formats and fewer episodes), 2026 marks a shift toward more precise editorial positioning and high-impact storytelling.”

This year’s festival selection features greater narrative precision and more restrained storytelling; a strong commitment to addressing political and societal instability; increased cross-border European collaboration; and the consolidation of Europe as a key production hub for global platforms.

“The rise of extremism emerges as a central theme throughout the selection,” Herszberg says. “Through historical revisitations and speculative fiction, creators explore an urgent question: how do individuals respond to authoritarianism—do they resist, collaborate or flee?”

“At the same time, many series question masculinities—shaped by violence, destabilized or undergoing transformation—while highlighting complex female characters and narratives of collective and individual struggles,” she adds.

That being said, the Series Mania Festival lineup also features “a breath of fresh air” through lighter, more comedy-driven series as well. “More than ever, the series remind us that telling stories about the world is an essential way of questioning it and refusing to resign ourselves to it.”

At the heart of the festival will be the Village Festival by Crédit Mutuel, “the go-to hub for festival-goers, offering parties, workshops, signings, live podcasts and the immersive exhibition ‘Not Even Scared!’” Herszberg says. “Exploring iconic TV villains—from Scooby-Doo and Stranger Things to Dexter and Hannibal—the exhibition blends storytelling and sensory thrills under the patronage of best-selling author Maxime Chattam, alongside dedicated events and fan gatherings.”

Last year, Series Mania introduced the Buyers Upfront to its program to much success and will be bringing it back on March 23. The event is “designed to provide buyers with exclusive access to highly anticipated series and facilitate networking opportunities with the leading distributors behind them,” explains Francesco Capurro, director of Series Mania Forum.

This year’s iteration of the Buyers Upfront will begin with the BETA Brunch, an exclusive, invitation-only event, before moving on to presentations of exclusive clips from up to ten series with strong international potential. A jury made up of leading buyers—led by jury president Oliver Jones, senior commissioner at Apple TV—will award the Buyers’ Choice Award to the most promising series at the Series Mania Forum Award Ceremony.

Among the buyers confirmed to attend the event are: ARTE (France/Germany), Apple TV (U.S.), Bell Media (Canada), BeTV (Belgium), CANAL+ (France), CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada), Channel 4 (U.K.), Česká televize (Czech Republic), Disney+ (France), France Télévisions (France), ITV (U.K.), HRT (Croatia), LRT (Lithuania), M6 (France), Mediaset (Italy), NBCUniversal (U.K.) NRK (Norway), WOWOW (Japan) and many more.

Series Mania Forum has plenty to offer this year as well. The Co-Pro Pitching Session will feature 15 projects, selected from nearly 400 applications from 65 countries. This includes six new territories: Palestine, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus, Uruguay, Panama and Malaysia. One project, Gold, has already been presented out of competition as part of Series Mania’s partnership with Berlinale Co-Production Series.

Also this year, Series Mania Forum has named a Country of Honour for the first time. The Republic of Korea was selected as the inaugural Country of Honour, as it is “one of the most influential markets in global series creation,” Capurro says. “The selection of Korea as the Country of Honour coincides with the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea (the 1886 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation).”

“It also dovetails closely with last year’s BroadCast Worldwide (BCWW), Asia’s largest marketing event for broadcast video content, which honored France during its 25th edition in Seoul,” he adds.

The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) will be attending Series Mania Forum as a result, along with eight additional Korean companies: Channel A Corporation, CJ ENM, EO Content Group, KBS Media, MBC, SLL Joongang, Studio S and WHYNOT MEDIA.

Series Mania Forum participants will be able to attend a “Coming Next From Korea” session, hear from leading Korean creatives during conferences and roundtables and partake in a dedicated networking cocktail, all designed to “reflect the dynamism and creativity of the South Korean audiovisual industry,” Capurro says.

On the final day of Series Mania Forum, the Lille Dialogues sessions will take place again, this time based around the theme of “the new alliances.”

“In a world marked by tension, caught between political polarization and technological disruption, the audiovisual sector is demonstrating resilience and forging new alliances to adapt and envision the future,” Herszberg explains of the theme. “At a global level, regional cooperation is being reshaped—the United States, long the dominant force in global storytelling, is turning inward, while other regions and countries are opening new dialogues, implementing joint funding mechanisms and building unprecedented partnerships.”

She continues, “In Europe, institutions are supporting the audiovisual industry both economically and in safeguarding the fundamental values of European democracy. Initiatives such as Agora EU and the Series Co-Production Convention are helping to structure a sector in the midst of transformation.”

Also, “commercial broadcasters and on-demand platforms, once competitors, are now working together to maximize the visibility and monetization of their works in the face of advertisers increasingly drawn to content-sharing platforms operating under often unequal rules.”

“The audiovisual sector—and fiction in particular—is undergoing profound change,” she says. It is “a moment of opportunity to reinvent itself within an expanded ecosystem. This is the time for new alliances.”

As such, the Lilles Dialogues will feature panels titled “Audiovisual Alliances: The New Deal,” featuring executives from France’s Les Productions Dynamic, Spain’s Tornasol Media and Canada’s Téléfilm Canada, and “Strategic Alliances & Advertising Revenues Under Pressure: What’s at Stake for the European Audiovisual Sector?”, with representatives from France’s TF1, Webedia and I Love Productions, as well as the European Union’s Media Board.

More than 5,000 professionals are expected to gather at Series Mania Forum, Herszberg says. The constantly growing festival audience, meanwhile, is expected to exceed 100,000 admissions.

“Series Mania has established itself as an essential venue for thinking about series, but also as a joyful event that celebrates series-loving and stimulates creativity,” she says. “It thus claims an essential place: that of the beating heart of series creation, attentive to the world, open to others and resolutely turned toward the future.”

And for those who are unable to attend this beating heart of the industry, key events from this year will be streamed and available on replay on the Series Mania website and YouTube channel. For industry professionals, all of Series Mania Forum’s panels will be available live and on replay on the Series Mania+ platform.