LILLE, France —“Yours, Margot,” from“Compartment No 6’s” Juho Kuosmanen, Guatemalan Cannes Camera d’Or winner César Díaz (“Our Mothers”) and Brazil’s Beatriz Seigner (“Los Silencios”) have won the three prizes on offer at the first edition of Seriesmakers.
A mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut, after an inaugural edition delivering one of the most talent-packed project lineups at any festival, film or TV, in 2023, Seriesmakers backers Beta Group and Series Mania opened on Wednesday a call for admissions for a second edition.
Though all three series range hugely in setting and creators, all three see their protagonists go back to a recent past to explore events that have impacted their family (“Yours, Margot”), their modern-day country (“The Invisible Ink”), or traumas in the present (“Amigas”).
Doing so they form part of one of the biggest trends in current issue-driven series, through the resort to an alternative, future or recent past setting to talk with varying degrees of directness about the present.
“Yours, Margot” and Diaz’s “The Invisible Ink” have both won €50,000 Beta Development Awards.
In the former, which is produced by Jussi Rantamäki for Helsinki-basedAamu Film Company, with “Compartment” scribes Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman also on board. It turns on Vilja, who spent her childhood in East Berlin, following her foreign correspondent father. After his death, she finds old letters to “Erich,” all from mysterious “Margot.” Now, as an adult, she decides to go back to Berlin and track her down.
The series, tracing the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, will still concentrate mostly on “the collapse of the family,” Rantamäki toldPvNew.
“The Invisible Ink” is a drama-thriller in which a former Uruguayan anarchist, now leading a quiet life in Belgium, finds on his doorstep his former torturer who threatens to kill his family if he doesn’t hand over hidden loot.
The ex-revolutionary must return to Uruguay and confront people who thought him dead for 20 years. Producer Fernando Epstein, whose credits include “25 Watts” and “Whisky” co-writes.
Written by writer-director Maira Bühler (“Let It Burn”), “Amigas” will receive a €20,000 ($21,400) award, courtesy of the Kirch Foundation in collaboration with HFF (the University of Television and Film Munich). In it, five high school girl friends meet once more at their 25th graduation anniversary, and finally face a traumatic experience they lived together as teens.
