Poland’s The Gift, Ukraine’s Happy Nation Win at EastSeries

The third edition of the drama series pitching competition EastSeries awarded Olga Chajdas and Marta Konarzewska from Poland for their project, The Gift, an invitation to the UGC Writers Campus by Series Mania 2020.

EastSeries is organized by the Odesa International Film Festival Film Industry Office Team and powered by ScripTeast in partnership with Series Mania and supported by Star Media. It took place in Odesa from July 18 to 19, where six drama series projects from Eastern Europe with international potential were selected to participate. The pitching competition jury featured Adrienne Frejacques (ARTE, France), Mirela Nastase (ZDF Enterprises, Germany), Francesco Capurro (Series Mania Forum, France), Dariusz Jablonski (ScripTeast/Independent Film Foundation, Poland) and Vlad Ryashin (Star Media, Ukraine).

The Gift was up against Carpathia from Ukraine’s Marysia Nіkіtiuk, Maryna Stepanska and Nariman Aliev; Dead and Married from Hungary’s Kristina Jilly; Disstaf from Croatia’s Nenad Antonovic; Salvia from Romania’s Stefan Peca; and Happy Nation from Dmytro Hrypun, which won The Star Media Award, a post-production service package worth $20,000.

The jury wrote of The Gift: “We believe in the high potential of this project. It’s a character-driven story with a strong female lead upon transgenerational trauma that goes beyond the border of Poland and can reach an international audience.”

It added of Happy Nation: “One of the projects took us to a coming-of-age journey from childhood friendship to organized crime in post-Soviet Kyiv in the ’90s. It was efficient, colorful and promising.”