LILLE, FRANCE – March 8, 2019 – Following the announcement of the distinguished list of speakers for Lille Transatlantic Dialogues, Ms. Laurence Herszberg, founder and general director of Series Mania, announced today the final part of its 2019 professional program of Series Mania Forum: the all-new VR (Virtual Reality) Co-Production Initiative set for March 26 at Lille Grand Palais.
Inspired by the success of the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, whose projects for 2019 were recently announced, the core of this initiative will be new VR Pitching Sessions which will allow eight international VR series projects to be presented by their creators on stage in front of potential financiers and broadcasters. Carefully handpicked by VR advisors Voyelle Acker (ex-Nouvelles Écritures at France Télévisions, immersive experience producer) and Michel Reilhac (VR program advisor for the Venice Film Festival), the selection of the first VR Pitching Sessions will include the following projects:
· Breathe, created by Diego Galafassi, Denmark/Sweden/USA
· Gloomy Eyes, created by Jorge Tereso and Fernando Maldonado, Argentina/France
· Into the Mind, created by Jessica Brillhart, USA
· Mechanical Souls, created by L.P.Lee and Gaëlle Mourre, France/Taiwan
· Pagan Peak, created by Max Sacker and Ioulia Isserlis, Germany
· The Queen of the Forest, created by Priscila Guedes, Brasil
· Tinder is the night, created by Oriane Hurard, France
· VoyeuR, created by Simon Buisson, France
On March 26, Series Mania Forum will also host dedicated conferences and panels on the next trends in VR content production, including a conversation with Ioulia Isserlis (CEO & Creative Producer at AnotherWorld, Germany), who will give her dual artist-producer input on how VR creators are changing series production; and an exclusive dialogue between Jessica Brillhart (Founder of Viral Pictures, USA) and Louis Derungs (Pain neuroscience expert, Mindaze, Belgium) on the tremendous potential of VR for therapeutic and experimental storytelling.
“With the growing impact of immersive media in the audiovisual sector, the serial format is now spreading into all forms of narrative,” commented Laurence Herszberg. “At Series Mania, we believe AR, VR and Mixed Reality are part of the present of the series industry – thus, we are proud to extend our co-production initiatives to VR and immersive media.”
“Series are arguably the best way to experience VR,” explained Michel Reilhac. “In part because current VR headsets are best-suited for short-term sessions, but mostly because immersive media has this specificity of being a very intense watching experience. We are only starting to discover the immense possibilities offered by these new sensory interfaces: this is about learning to manipulate space, in the same way cinema learned to manipulate time.”
All VR projects and additional experiences will be available via dedicated headsets in a VR Experience area over the course of Series Mania Forum, from March 25 to 27.
For more information on SERIES MANIA FORUM, the professional days of the SERIES MANIA festival, please go to:https://seriesmania.com/en/industry/forum
Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, VR & Storytelling, Lille Transatlantic Dialogues, conferences and networking - register now to attend the event where series begin:https://seriesmania.com/en/industry/accreditations
ABOUT SERIES MANIA
Created by Laurence Herszberg in 2010 with artistic director Frederic Lavigne while both were at the Forum des images, the Series Mania Festival brings the best international series to the big screen and offers audiences (over 55,000 spectators in 2018) the rare opportunity to meet and learn from renowned showrunners, directors and television talent. Series Mania has developed into a unique event with wide recognition, entirely dedicated to series, aimed at both the general public and industry professionals. For the 2019 edition, from March 22 to 30, the Festival will once again be held in the charming northern French city of Lille (Hauts-de-France). As usual, it will include a program of world premieres and series selected for competition, overseen by a prestigious international jury.
ABOUT SERIES MANIA FORUM
Launched in 2013, Series Mania Forum, the industry arm of the Series Mania Festival, has become the place to be for all those involved in the creation of series from around the world. In just a few years, Series Mania Forum has already seen many projects come to fruition, including Eden, Stella Blomkvist, Keeping Faith and Tabula Rasa, with many others currently in production. In 2018, the Forum launched the first edition of Lille Transatlantic Dialogues, a one-day summit bringing together high-level political, corporate, creative and economic players from the TV and culture sectors in Europe and North America. With more than 2,000 registered professionals expected in 2019, the Forum is now the place where industry talent and decision-makers meet to create the new generation of serial fiction.
