Series Mania should be renamed SeriesBazaar. Indeed, so crowded were the stairs that connected the four levels of its TV festival’s Lille, France venue, the Lille Grand Palais, that it resembled New York City’s Penn Station during peak hours. The Forum section of the Series Mania festival saw a mix of exhibitors, drama buyers, panelists, journalists, producers, and agents, and, according to Francesco Capurro, head of Series Mania Forum, the event attracted 3,800 people, 500 more than last year, who walked around the halls wearing two different colored badges. There were red and green badges, but no reason was given for the distinction.
Series Mania began on March 17, 2023 with its International Festival, offering TV screenings that were open to the general public. It ended on Friday, March 24. There were so many television programs to view this year that those screenings took over five local theaters. The complete list of the Festival winners is available here. Meanwhile, the Forum, the business component of the event, began on March 21 and concluded on March 23.
And that’s where the explosive growth showed up. The Forum recorded an unprecedented 53 exhibiting companies, all of whom took residence on the second and fourth floors of the Palais, with brands like NBCUniversal, All3Media, Globo TV, and MediaPro in attendance.
All3Media’s Rachel Glaister explained her company’s decision to exhibit at the Forum instead of at MIPTV, which is set for April in Cannes: “Here, we’re meeting the drama buyers who recently screened our products at the London Screenings.”
Brazil’s Globo sent two executives, Gabriel Doria and Jessica Aguiar. Doria pointed out that that he (and Globo) are first-time exhibitors, who came to Lille mainly to meet with European buyers and co-producers.
Then there was InterMedya’s Can Okan, who became the Forum’s only Turkish exhibitor in order to meet potential co-producers for his company’s new miniseries projects, high-quality shows that consist of six to 12 episodes that run from 22-24 minutes each that were developed primarily for AVoD channels, which will allow the company to expand in Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada.
According to Okan, exhibiting at Series Mania’s Forum is less expensive than MIPTV and even recent Miami TV markets. “In effect, it can be compared to a Budapest market,” said Okan.
Another first for the Forum is the participation of a large number of top European distribution executives. Attendees included Cineflix’s Tim Mutimer, Rainmaker’s Greg Phillips, Fremantle’s Jens Richter, and Berta Orozco, who just joined Spain’s Mediacrest as head of International Sales and Co-productions.
Pictured above: The Forum’s Convention Center; VideoAge’s Dom Serafini with Series Mania Forum’s Francesco Capurro; All3Media’s Elin Thomas with an unidentified French buyer; InterMedya’s Can Okan, Beatriz Cea Okan, and Ahmet Ziyalar; Globo’s Jessica Aguiar and Gabriel Doria; Global Screen’s Nick Douglas-Home and Boatrocker’s Erik Pack (r).
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