LILLE & PARIS, FRANCE – February 20, 2019 – At press conferences held today in both Lille and Paris, Rodolphe Belmer, Festival President, and Laurence Herszberg, General Director and Founder, unveiled the details for the upcoming Series Mania Festival set for March 22 – 30 in Lille, including the official competition of worldwide series premieres and official jury.
International Jury
Marti Noxon - Jury President
Producer, screenwriter & director – USA
Credits include: Sharp Objects, Dietland, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers& Sisters, and Glee, just to name a few. Additionally, Marti Noxon made her feature directorial debut with the powerful film To the Bone in 2017, which she also penned the screenplay for.
Juliana Margulies
Actress & producer – USA
Credits include: Juliana Margulies is best known for her television work on The Good Wife and ER. She is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award winner. She will next star in the National Geographic series The Hot Zone, based on the true story of the origins of the Ebola virus. Other television credits include The Sopranos, The Mists of Avalon and The Grid.
Audrey Fleurot
Actress – France
Credits include: Six seasons of Kaamelott, Spiral and Un village français. Her first break-out film role was in TheIntouchables, followed by La Délicatesse, Les Gazelles and Le Fantôme de Canterville. More recently, she has appeared in the TV series Call My Agent!, Les Témoins, and Safe.
Delphine De Vigan
Author, screenwriter & director – France
She is the author of No and Me, Nothing Holds Back the Night, and Based on a True Story. Two of her novels have been adapted for the cinema – No and Me, Based on a True Story, and in addition to being a novelist, she also writes for the big and small screens.
Thomas Lilti
Director & screenwriter – France
Credits include: Hippocrates, Irreplaceable, The Freshman. His most significant event of 2018 is the critical and popular success of the Hippocrates TV series, broadcast by Canal+, for which he created and directed all eight episodes.
Guests of Honor
Uma Thurman
Actress – USA
Credits include: Chambers, The Parisian Woman, The House That Jack Built, The Con is On, Down a Dark Hall, The War With Grandpa. Her television and film accolades include NBC’s miniseries The Slap, and Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1. She is best known for her portrayal of Mia Wallace, a sexy mobster's wife in Quentin Tarantino's critically lauded Pulp Fiction and his highly successful Kill Bill film franchise, among many, many others.
Charlie Brooker & Annabel Jones
Screenwriter, producer – UK
Credits include: He is an award-winning writer, producer and broadcaster whose career has spanned TV, radio, print, and online media. She is a producer and long-term collaborator with Charlie Brooker. They are the co-creators and co-showrunners of Black Mirror. The ground-breaking interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch launched on Netflix at the end of 2018. Their other scripted series include the 2008 thriller Dead Set nominated for a Best Drama Serial BAFTA Award.
Freddie Highmore
Actor – UK
Credits include: He currently stars in ABC drama The Good Doctor, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. In 2017, Freddie Highmore wrapped the fifth and final season of the Emmy-nominated Bates Motel as the iconic Norman Bates, for which he was awarded a People’s Choice Award for Best Actor. In addition to starring, he wrote three episodes in the fourth and fifth seasons and made his directorial debut during the show final season.
Yves Rénier
Actor, director – France
Credits include: He starred in popular series including Les Cinq DernièresMinutes, Belphégor, and Les Globe-trotters, before taking the title role in Commissaire Moulin. He has worked in cinema, in films such as Peppermint Soda, Pékin-Central, Frantic, and Les Anges gardiens, and in television, in series including Pour tout l’or du Transvaal, Dolmen, Otages, Section de recherches, and Plus belle la vie.
Éric Rochant
Director, screenwriter, series creator - France
Credits include: He directed several episodes of the series Mafiosa, before creating writing and directing the smash hit series The Bureau. His first feature, Un monde sans pitié, was a box-office hit and became a cult hit for an entire generation. This was followed by Aux yeux du monde, Les Patriotes, Anna Oz, Vive la république !, Total Western, L'École pour tous and Möbius.
Hugo Blick
Writer, director, producer – UK
Credits include: His most recent production, Black Earth Rising, a BBC/Netflix coproduction, was aired in the UK to critical acclaim and launched worldwide by Netflix in late January 2019. Previous productions include the multi-awarded miniseries The Honourable Woman. Previous work includes The Shadow Line starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Christopher Eccleston. He is also an occasional screen actor with credits ranging from Black Earth Rising to Tim Burton’s Batman in which he played the Young Joker.
Series Mania 2019 Official Competition
Baghdad Central (Stephen Butchard, UK)
Chambers (Leah Rachel, USA)
Chimerica (Lucy Kirkwood, UK)
Eden (Edward Berger, Nele Mueller Stöfen, Marianne Wendt, France & Germany)
Identification (Valery Fedorovich, Evgeny Nikishov, Russia)
Just For Today (Nir Bergman, Ram Nehari, Israel)
Lambs of God (Sarah Lambert, Australia)
Mytho (Anne Berest, France)
Twin (Kristoffer Metcalfe, Norway)
The Virtues (Shane Meadows, UK)
French Competition
The Last Wave (Raphaëlle Roudaut, Alexis Le Sec)
Super Jimmy (Camille Pouzol, Stéphane Drouet, Lionel Olenga)
Family Shake (Baya Kasmi)
Osmosis (Audrey Fouché)
Soupçons (Lionel Bailliu, Yann Le Gal)
Une Île (Gaia Guasti, Aurélien Molas)
International Panorama
8 Days (Peter Kocyla, Rafael Parente, Germany)
Asylum City (Eitan Tzur, Uzi Weil, Liad Shoham, Israel)
Blackout (Sergei Ursuliak, Russia)
The Cry (Jacquelin Perske, UK & Australia)
Curfew (Matthew Read, UK)
Exit (Petter Testmann-Koch, Øystein Karlsen, Norway)
Flack (Oliver Lansley, UK)
Folklore (Eric Khoo, Singapore)
The Guest (Seo Jae-won, Gwon So-ra, South Korea)
Hierro (Pepe Coira, Spain & France)
Les Misérables (Andrew Davies, UK)
Monzón (Francisco Varone, Leandro Custo, Gabriel Nicoli, Gabriela Larralde, Jesus Braceras, Agustin Bossi, Pol Bossi, Argentina)
MotherFatherSon (Tom Rob Smith, UK)
Pros And Cons (Thor Bjørn, Denmark)
Success (Marjan Alčevski, Croatia)
Best of USA
The Red Line
The Twilight Zone
Black Monday
I Am The Night
Manifest
Additional portions of Series Mania will include:
Series Mania Forum (Industry arm of Series Mania)
UGC Writers Campus by Series Mania
Short Form Competition
New Season Premieres
All-Night Marathons
All-Night Comedy Marathon
A screening event of Game of Thrones’ most iconic episodes: 7 Seasons of Winter
And also: Special Screenings, Series Mania Culte, Les Séances en Région, Masterclasses and keynotes, Fan Club, Le Village Festival, Le Off de Series Mania.
Final details of the SERIES MANIA’s professional event organized from March 25 to 27 at Lille Grand Palais, SERIES MANIA FORUM, will be shared in the following days.
