From eco-thrillers to classic whodunits, to stories of powerful female characters: there is great diversity among the 15 projects selected for the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions at Series Mania Forum, which will compete for the Best Project Award worth €50,000 to support the development of the winning series.
In unveiling the selection, the festival’s director and founder, Laurence Hersberg, and the market director, Francesco Capurro, emphasize the impact of the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions in accelerating project development: over 40 have been produced in ten years and distributed across numerous territories.
For the first time, the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions host a Kyrgyz project, set in 1970s Soviet Kyrgyzstan: the protagonist is Aisha, the daughter of an officer, who creates the Red Pants (also the project’s title), the first female criminal gang seeking to avenge her father’s death and challenge the oppressive regime.
Period drama and female empowerment also feature in the Spanish thriller Without Standing, which takes us back to early 1980s Madrid when, upon the legalization of divorce, a disgraced secretary opens a law office for desperate wives whom no male lawyer intended to represent. And in the German black action-comedy Ignition: the protagonist is an East German mechanic who becomes a driver for a motorcycle gang to prevent the bankruptcy of her family garage.
Another strong woman, linked to the gold business, is the protagonist of Gold: the series, which will recount her descent into hell in the darkest corners of this trade and her own soul in an attempt to save her family legacy, is the project selected at the Berlinale Co-Pro Series Market (we discussed it here). It will participate in the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions on March 24, but will not compete for the development prize.
Various female figures find themselves (unofficially) leading an investigation, such as Tamsin Hope, a mystery writer with writer’s block, who, together with her ex-boyfriend, now a detective, must solve the mystery of her father’s death and other crimes against the backdrop of the picturesque South African wine route (Twisted Vines).
Female-led thrillers intertwined with politics include Death of a Diplomat, where the wife of the Canadian ambassador to Iceland becomes an amateur detective following a murder, or the Finnish Power Couple, where the leading presidential candidate discovers her husband is a Russian sleeper spy who has just been reactivated. The Latvian Aurora.Newsroom. is also espionage-themed: the protagonist is a journalist who uncovers a ‘New Cold War’ spy network active in the Baltic States.
A Yenish teenager and a young sergeant are the protagonists of the Belgian thriller Fagnes.
An Italian project is also in the running: The Transfer of the Century, a dramatic comedy that tells the true story of Maradona’s transfer to Napoli in five 50-minute episodes. Written by Raffaele Iaccarino, Giacomo Zibardi, and Filippo Gravino, it is produced by Indiana Production & Lucky Red.
A dramatic comedy with thriller undertones is the Israeli Fit, which revolves around the disappearance of a handsome gym instructor after videos revealing his relationships with several married women go viral.
And more thrillers and ice in Patagonia (The Glaciers Murders, a Spain-Chile co-production), in Iceland (Kondrad), and in a picturesque ski resort in Chamonix, France (Montroc).
Also from France, the drama series Dejima takes us to 19th-century Japan in a story of love and escape between a French doctor and a samurai’s noblewoman, set against the backdrop of the regime’s collapse.
From the United Kingdom comes Imposter Syndrome, a thriller featuring a failed actor and a powerful dynasty.
The winning project will be determined by a jury chaired by Jorge Pezzi, Head of Fiction and Entertainment at Movistar Plus+, and composed of Alexandre Piel, Deputy Head of Drama at ARTE; Laura Mae Harding, Commissioning Editor at ZDF; Alon Aranya, Founder of Paper Plane Productions; and Johanna Gårdare, Head of Drama & Film at SVT.
