Fertile Crescent Wins Series Mania Project Award

The Israel-France submission of the drama series Fertile Crescent has been selected as the winner of the Series Mania Project Award.

Of the 16 projects selected and pitched for this year’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions at the Series Mania Co-Production Forum, Fertile Crescent won a check for €50,000 to help finance its development. This marks the first year that a monetary prize has been given to the winners.

The jury included Francesca Orsi, co-head of drama at HBO; Thomas Bourguignon, producer at KWAI; Piv Bernth, head of drama at DR; Henrik Pabst, managing director of Red Arrow International; and Pilar Perez Roel, head of acquisitions for DCD Rights. The team from Fertile Crescent accepting the honor included Maria Feldman (Masha Productions), Eitan Mansuri (Spiro Films), Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta and Simon Arnal (Haut et Court TV).

“We were thrilled by the quality of projects this year and the intensity of the meetings between the producers, broadcasters, sales agents and project holders,” commented Laurence Herszberg, general director of Forum des Images and founder of Series Mania. “Never have we reached such a high level of networking amongst the key television industry decision-makers. I am proud to congratulate the team from Fertile Crescent for this tremendous honor. With the prize of €50,000, Series Mania is reinforcing our goal of giving a significant financial boost to the development of the winning project.”

Orsi, jury president, said: “It’s timely political conversation and emotionally daring and unique narrative makes Fertile Crescent a very exciting winner this year. I know I speak for the whole jury in saying we are greatly looking forward to seeing this globally important series come to life.”