Isabelle Adjani & Famke Janssen Thrillers Lead Latest Netflix TV Slate – Series Mania

EXCLUSIVE: Apple is expanding the ensemble cast of its upcoming series Your Friends and Neighbors with Isabel Gravitt (The Watcher, Little Fires Everywhere) and Donovan Colan (Theater Camp, Spirit Halloween, upcoming The Dogs).

Annette Bening‘s first major TV series role has won the five-time Oscar nominee the Best Actress prize at this year’s Series Mania.

Marta Balaga It has been a while since “The Queen’s Gambit,” but as proven by “Rematch,” viewers’ love for chess is certainly not diminishing. The show, dedicated to confrontation between famous chess player Garry Kasparov and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue, was named the winner at Series Mania. A somewhat lukewarm reception of “Apples Never Fall” didn’t stop Annette Bening from being crowned as best actress.

Series Mania was Warner Bros. Discovery’s European roll-out timeline for Max, announced Thursday at the climax of the Series Mania’s Lille Dialogues. The most keenly anticipated session was nearly Series Mania’ Forum first: a Netflix showcase hosted by a confident Larry Tanz who significantly proved the only goal streamer exec to drill down on volume commitment.

EXCLUSIVE: MSNBC Films has unveiled its spring and summer slate including a Dave Eggers documentary about book-banning.

The boss of one of the world’s biggest TV distributors has predicted streamers will return to commissioning originals in bulk once they “break even.”

Ben Croll Of the many politically-tinged projects premiering at this year’s Series Mania, French thriller “In the Shadows” could very well claim the best pedigree. While showrunner Pierre Schoeller has spent a career tracing his country’s corridors of power through films like “Versailles” and “The Minister,” he found a most opportune creative partner working with politician Edouard Philippe to adapt the latter’s 2011 novel. Perhaps the name rings a bell.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Netflix France’s campaign for Season 4 of the popular UK series, “Sex Education” was announced winner of Series Mania’s Best Marketing Initiative Award. Launched last year, the prize recognizes a company’s promotional efforts to consumers (BTC) as well as initiatives by producers and distributors to raise awareness of a show among commissioners and buyers (BTB). The jury included executives from BBC Creative Studios, Inédite Agency, and Make It Happen Studios, along with the Series Mania team.

Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald has won the €50,000 ($54,000) Series Mania Seriesmakers award.

Christian Schwochow has signed up to direct , the upcoming Constantin Film and Big Light Productions scripted series based on events surrounding the Nuremberg trials that took place in the wake of World War Two.

EXCLUSIVE: Sky Studios and Groenlandia are readying feature film director Sydney Sibilia’s first TV drama series. Someone Killed Spiderman – Accidentally Famous (working title) is for Sky Italia and is about a non-conformist teenager who becomes on half of successful musical duo 883.

Disney+ unveiled new originals out of France, Germany and Spain at Series Mania, with period drama and a pair of true crime projects added to a 70-part Spanish novella that will be stripped through the week.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor A panel moderated by the European Audiovisual Observatory at Series Mania Tuesday looked at four key trends in series production in Europe. Warning Signs?Gilles Fontaine, EAO’s head of department for market information, said there were warning signs of a downward trend in the number of seasons being produced, first in the U.S.

Ben Croll An explosive political drama retracing the 2018 murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, “Our People” claimed the best project award at this year’s Series Mania Forum. Winning €50,000 ($54,318) in prize money and earning an enhanced international stature, the unflinching miniseries should now see an easier path forward – particularly given the chilly reception it found with funding authorities in native Slovakia. “We thought it impossible,” said director Tereza Nvotova as she claimed the Series Mania prize.

A small pro-Palestine protest formed outside Series Mania in France on Tuesday.

EXCLUSIVE: AGC Television is dropping a hot TV project into this week’s Series Mania market in Lille.

Peak TV just got put into perspective. Asked at a Series Mania session about the volume of TV being made, European Commission official Lucia Recalde broke out an estimate that it would take over three centuries to watch everything currently on streaming services.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Variety’s Series Mania Bulletin highlights breaking news at this year’s French TV festival: Paramount+ has announced the schedule and pricing for its international ad-supported Basic subscription offering and Premium plan, both set to begin this month in selected countries. The ad-supported Basic plan will be available in April in Canada and in June in Australia, priced at $6.99 in Canadian and Australian dollars.

Netflix EMEA boss Larry Tanz has criticized local quotas for “stifling creativity” and said the streamer remains “all in” while competitors “dial back.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While at Series Mania Festival, Larry Tanz, Netflix‘s VP of EMEA Content, unveiled ambitious new shows commissioned from France and the Netherlands, including an untitled thriller series starring Isabelle Adjani, and “Amsterdam Empire,” a Dutch crime series starring and executive produced by Famke Janssen. The untitled French thriller series revolves around a young mother on the run finds an unexpected opportunity to bounce back by becoming a picker in a prestigious flower farm in Provence. But the mysterious death of the family patriarch of the company casts her under the spotlight as the prime suspect.