Series Mania Festival Expands Co-Production Forum

PARIS: The Series Mania Festival is ramping up its activities to promote the creation and production of TV shows through the Co-Production Forum, the fest’s industry arm, which will feature a new mentoring program to support new talent.

In association with Series Mania, the Torino Film Lab is launching SeriesLab, a new scheme to support TV series writing. The projects created as a result of the initiative will be presented to industry executives at the Co-Production Forum during Series Mania in April. SeriesLab was established with the support of the Creative Europe Media program and targets international screenwriters and creators seeking assistance during the first phase of developing their series.

Potential projects can be submitted until October 17, and nine new fiction projects comprised of at least six episodes each will be selected. The projects will be developed through a fee-paying training scheme that will run between January and April of next year. The individuals behind each selected project will receive personalized help from writers and tutors throughout the writing process. The program will involve three residencies in Spain, Italy and France, and after the third residency.

The Co-Production Forum will now run over four days from April 18-21, while the eighth edition of the Series Mania Festival will be held April 13 to 23.