Red Pants: the first project from Kyrgyzstan to participate in Series Mania Forum is the winner of the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, which took place this morning, March 24, in Lille.
It is a story of female redemption, set in Soviet Kyrgyzstan in the 1970s: the protagonist is Aisha, daughter of an officer, who creates the Red Pants, the first female criminal gang that seeks to avenge her father’s death and challenges the oppressive regime. Red Pants, written by Tilek Cherikov and produced by Erke Dzhumakmatova for Studio Oymo, in co-production with Human Films (Pavel Feldman & Alexander Seliverstov), receives the prize worth 50,000 euros.
The winners of the second edition of Series Mania Buyers Upfront, which inaugurated the SM Forum yesterday, and of SeriesMakers, two initiatives created in collaboration with Beta Film, were also revealed.
The best project for the Buyers gathered in Lille is the French R91, a thriller-action series of 6 episodes of 52 minutes, which takes place on the French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91), which, just after setting sail for a strategic mission, becomes the scene of a murder and a disappearance: the investigation by military investigator Paul Fischer and his deputy Helena Duval turns into a global security crisis.
The Canadian series Chachachá! (8 x 30′) written and directed by Alison Fairweather Murray and produced by Jennifer Weiss for Nice Picture! It is the winner of SeriesMakers, an initiative directed by Marianne Guillon, director of Series Mania Institute and Ferdinand Dohna, Head of Content & Co-Production at Beta.
For Dohna, the light, authentic and sincere tone with which the series, which features a Generation X woman taking a Latin dance class due to a blood pressure issue, “addresses important universal themes with humor: exactly the type of story that international audiences need.”
