Series Mania Selects 16 Projects for Co-Production Forum

PARIS: The Series Mania Festival’s Co-Production Forum has received more than 200 projects from 33 different countries as entries for this year’s event, which will take place April 19 to 21 in Paris.

From these submissions, 16 projects have been chosen with the goal of helping the high-end European drama projects find appropriate financial partners, mainly through co-production deals or presale agreements. The selected projects hail from ten different countries and represent Scandinavia, the U.K., Eastern and Southern Europe, with three projects from France.

These projects will be presented to 300 potential co-financers, including producers, distributors and TV channel representatives expected to attend. Companies already confirmed include Netflix, Amazon, BBC Worldwide, ZDF, Red Arrow International, Gaumont Television, Zodiak, ITV Studios, Sony Pictures and Beta. European broadcasters will be in attendance, including AMC, ABC, A+E Networks, ProSieben SAT 1, DR, ZDF, SVT, Canal+, RTL, France Televisions, TV4 Sweden, RAI, ARTE, Sky Italy, TV2 Denmark, Mediaset and RTE.

The 16 selected projects are: 16 Knot (Italy), Belle Epoque (France), Eden (Germany/France), Flight 1618 (France), Gastronomy (Israel), Hidden (Sweden), Keeping Faith (U.K.), Let’s Save the World (Germany), Liar (U.K.), One Square Mile (France), Pipeline (Poland), Pwned by the Mob (Netherlands), Stella Blomkvist (Iceland), The Illegal (Canada), The Specialists (Denmark) and Warrior (Denmark).

“The Co-Production Forum has now become a key date in the annual calendar for TV series professionals from around the world,” commented Laurence Herszberg, general director of Forum des Images and founder of Series Mania. “After our ‘call for projects’ went out, we were truly impressed by the number of entries we received, as well as the high quality of the projects that were submitted. The 16 titles that were chosen reveal a wide range of forms and genres, including procedural thrillers to historical dramas, and all the way to edgy contemporary stories without forgetting mainstream fare. We look forward to an incredible Co-Production Forum this year.”