Always more territories represented.
This year in Lille (North), the Séries Mania festival, which will take place from March 15 to 22, welcomes in its selections fiction from Latvia, Taiwan, New Zealand and even South Africa, alongside the traditional American, Canadian, European or Australian titles.
Productions from 21 countries will be screened.
At the same time, the various conflicts around the world impact audiovisual production.
This year, far fewer Israeli projects were able to submit their applications than usual and none were accepted by the festival, which had never happened since its creation.
That doesn't stop the programming from being enticing.
In terms of events, the highly anticipated science fiction series “The 3-Body Problem”, by the creators of “Game of Thrones”, will be screened as an opening, six days before its release on Netflix.
Festival-goers will also get the scoop on the debut of season 4 of “HPI”, or the Korean series “Pyramid Game” which could well be even more chilling than “Squid Game”.
Zal Batmanglij, co-creator of “The OA”, president of the international competition jury
In terms of guests, the American Kelly Rutherford (“Melrose Place”, “Gossip Girl”), recently seen in “Escort Boys” will be entitled to her master class, as will Laurent Lafitte who will be able to return to his role in “Tapie ".
The American writer Douglas Kennedy will also be present in Lille for a public discussion.
The list of personalities present in the North is very large, enough to satisfy the appetite of festival-goers whether they are fans of “Plus Belle La Vie”, “The Art of Crime” or “The OA”.
Because the president of the jury for the international competition is Zal Batmanglij, half of the creative duo he forms with Brit Marling, creator of “The OA” (Netflix) and “Murder at the End of the World” (Disney +).
A beautiful name well known to series fans, much less to the general public.
He will be accompanied by actors Bérénice Bejo and Sofiane Zermani, the Franco-Swedish director Charlotte Brändström (who notably worked on “The Witcher” or “The Rings of Power”) as well as the German actor Malick Bauer.
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They will award four international prizes: best series, best screenplay, best actress and best actor.
For the moment, the list of competitors contains two French fictions.
“In the Shadow” adapted from the book co-written by former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.
This political thriller with Melvil Poupaud and Karin Viard is particularly anticipated on France 2. “Rematch” then, on Arte, which depicts the second confrontation between the chess master Kasparov and the Deep Blue software in 1997.
Note among the other series in competition, the Australian “Apples Never Fall”, a new adaptation of a novel by Liane Moriarty, author of the book which gave rise to the series “Big Little Lies”, on the crumbling of a seemingly perfect family.
After “Narcos” and “Narcos: Mexico”, the American creator Chris Brancato, regular at the festival, will be present again with “Hotel Cocaine” which takes place in Miami in the 1980s. We will notably find Michael Chiklis, the interpreter main character of “The Shield”.
Even more intriguing, a Norwegian creation entitled “So Long, Marianne” about a love story between singer Leonard Cohen and a young Norwegian woman he met in Greece.
As for the French competition, eclecticism is essential.
Director Hervé Hadmar returns with a thriller for OCS “Home-jacking”.
Margot Brancilhon and JoeyStarr will play a kung-fu pro and a former union drug addict in “Machine” (Arte/Prime Video).
Niels Schneider, who is currently shining in “D'Argent et de sang” on Canal +, will play a journalist in the burlesque investigation “The World Does Not Exist” (Arte).
Booba’s first acting steps in “Ourika”
M 6 will be there with a police comedy, “Murder Club” which will bring together Éric Cantona and Tiphaine Daviot.
“Ourika” (Prime Video) is also one of the most anticipated projects, co-created by rapper Booba, who is also taking his first steps as an actor.
The series is set during the 2005 riots and features a face-to-face confrontation between a police officer and a student forced to take over the reins of the family drug trade.
Finally, historical fiction will be there with “A Dangerous Friendship” by Alain Tasma for France Télévisions.
We will discover the relationship between the Duchess of Chevreuse Marie de Rohan and Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII while the royal couple fails to conceive an heir... Finally, an original touch to this non-exhaustive menu, an immersive exhibition behind the scenes will allow everyone to discover the hidden professions of the series such as those of language creator or culinary stylist.
The agenda and complete program will be posted online on February 27 and free ticketing will open on March 5 at 12:30 p.m. on
Seriesmania.com.