Lille, France – February 13, 2019 - The Series Mania International Festival fosters the talent of tomorrow at UGC Writers Campus: an intensive high-level workshop developed in partnership with UGC. From March 20 to 27, alongside the festival in Lille, the program allows 20 selected screenwriters to develop their project with renowned producers and showrunners.
For this edition, Series Mania welcomes celebrated writers-producers André and Marie Jacquemetton as UGC Writers Campus Guests of Honor. The couple wrote and produced six seasons of the critically acclaimed Mad Men (AMC) along with Matthew Weiner, a collaboration renewed for the series The Romanoffs (Amazon).
The 20 selected participants will be mentored by André and Maria Jacquemetton over the course of the program, through masterclasses, writing workshops and meetings with industry professionals. They will present their projects to the talent and producers of Series Mania Forum in one-on-one sessions and a general presentation on March 26, 2019 at Lille Grand Palais.
Over the course of two months, more than 120 candidates from 31 different countries applied. Under the supervision of Lorraine Sullivan (ex-Serial Eyes), the Series Mania selection committee has chosen 20 diverse participants to develop 18 ambitious projects at the end of March in Lille:
· Noy Carmel – The Beat – Israel (Sam Spiegel Film School)
· Abdul Casal – Fail-Safe – United Kingdom
· Etienne Chédeville – Hippocampus – France (INSAS)
· Francesca De Lisi – The Demon Within – Italy
· Dario Bonamin – The Demon Within – Italy
· Julie Anna Grignon – Woman – France (La Fémis)
· Ivan Knezevic – Starman – Serbia (Serial Eyes)
· Rashel Konstantinchenko – Dabushka – Israel (Sam Spiegel Film School)
· Andreas Kyriacou – Artful – Cyprus (Midpoint)
· Christian Miller-Harris – The Fix – Denmark
· Fabrizio Muscia – Miserere – Italy
· Audrey O'Reilly – Embrace The Base – Ireland
· Małgorzata Piłacinska – Smokey Eyes – Poland
· Francesco Nicola Renda – Left Behind – Italy (Scuola Holden)
· Magali Rossito – Taking Flight – France (CEEA)
· Hagit Saad – To The Moon And Back – Israel
· Lilach Barnea – To The Moon And Back – Israel
· Kaamil Shah – Dubai on Thames – United Kingdom (London Film School)
· Isaac Tomiczec – Afters – United Kingdom
· Emma Tyrbik Le Marc – The Twelve Labours Of Helga – Denmark
“As a major festival, it is Series Mania’s responsibility to provide the emerging generation of European creators the chance to foster original stories that will both resonate with audiences and the industry. This is the mission of UGC Writers Campus”, declared Laurence Herzberg, General Director of Series Mania.
“I am very proud of this partnership between UGC and Series Mania – the most important international series festival in Europe – regarding UGC Writers Campus” said Brigitte Maccioni, Managing Director of UGC. “The UGC group, in all its activities – production, distribution, theatrical exhibition – is always empowering the authors and culture in all its diverse genres.”
>>> UGC WRITERS CAMPUS is developed in partnership with the French production and distribution company UGC, with the support of SACD and Paris College of Art. For more about UGC WRITERS CAMPUS,click here
UGC WRITERS CAMPUS | PARTNER SCHOOLS
▪ La Fémis(Paris – France)
▪ Le Conservatoire Européen d’Ecritures Audiovisuelles(Paris – France)
▪ Serial Eyes(DFFB, Berlin – Germany)
▪ London Film School(London – United Kingdom)
▪ Sam Spiegel Film School(Jerusalem – Israel)
▪ Midpoint(Prague – Czech Republic)
▪ Scuola Holden(Torino – Italy)
▪ INSAS(Brussels –Belgium)
ABOUT ANDRÉAND MARIA JACQUEMETTON
André and Maria Jacquemetton established their career as writer‐producers on six seasons of AMC’S acclaimed series MAD MEN. Their work on that show garnered them multiple award nominations for writing and producing.
They have been fortunate to win three Emmys, four Writers Guild of America Awards, and two Producers Guild Awards for Producer of the Year in over two decades working in television. Their latest adventure is with Matthew Weiner’s series THE ROMANOFFS for Amazon Studios.
ABOUT SERIES MANIA
Created by Laurence Herszberg in 2010 in collaboration with artistic director Frederic Lavigne while both were at the Forum des Images, Series Mania 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 that is 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
Since its creation in 2013, Series Mania Forum, the professional side of the festival, has become a vital meeting place for series creators coming from Europe and the world. The Forum has helped numerous European projects come to fruition since its first edition, including but not limited to Liar, Tabula Rasa, Stella Blomkvist, Warrior and Keeping Faith, with many other series currently in development. In 2018, Series Mania Forum inaugurated Lille Transatlantic Dialogues (LTD), an illustrious meeting that brings together principle political, industry, creative, and economic representatives from throughout the audiovisual industry in Europe and the United States. With more than 2000 accredited professionals from over 35 countries during the last edition, the Forum has established itself as the scene where audiovisual policy-makers and talent can gather to imagine the next generation of series.
ABOUT UGC
The UGC group is one of the most important movie exhibitors in Europe: with more than 550 screens (including UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles in Paris, the most frequented movie theater in the world), UGC owns one of the largest francophone theatrical networks. Its subsidiary UGC Images produces and distributes both successful popular comedies and ambitious auteur movies such as the ones directed by Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone, The Sister Brothers…) or Terrence Malick (UGC will distribute Radegund, his next movie, in 2019).
UGC Images recently launched UGC Series, a TV department regrouping four production units in France and the UK. Following historical ratings with their first foray, Jacqueline Sauvage, It Was Him or Me, UGC is developing more than 15 series for major French and International broadcasters.
