SERIES MANIA UNVEILS LINEUP OF THE 2019 FESTIVAL TO BE HELD IN LILLE, FRANCE FROM MARCH 22 TO MARCH 30

LILLE & PARIS, FRANCE – February 20, 2019 – At press conferences held today in both Lille and Paris, Rodolphe Belmer, Festival President, and Laurence Herszberg, General Director and Founder, unveiled the details for the upcoming Series Mania Festival set for March 22 – 30 in Lille, including the official competition of worldwide series premieres and official jury.

International Jury

Marti Noxon - Jury President

Producer, screenwriter & director – USA

Credits include: Sharp Objects, Dietland, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers& Sisters, and Glee, just to name a few. Additionally, Marti Noxon made her feature directorial debut with the powerful film To the Bone in 2017, which she also penned the screenplay for.

Juliana Margulies

Actress & producer – USA

Credits include: Juliana Margulies is best known for her television work on The Good Wife and ER. She is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award winner. She will next star in the National Geographic series The Hot Zone, based on the true story of the origins of the Ebola virus. Other television credits include The Sopranos, The Mists of Avalon and The Grid.

Audrey Fleurot

Actress – France

Credits include: Six seasons of Kaamelott, Spiral and Un village français. Her first break-out film role was in TheIntouchables, followed by La Délicatesse, Les Gazelles and Le Fantôme de Canterville. More recently, she has appeared in the TV series Call My Agent!, Les Témoins, and Safe.

Delphine De Vigan

Author, screenwriter & director – France

She is the author of No and Me, Nothing Holds Back the Night, and Based on a True Story. Two of her novels have been adapted for the cinema – No and Me, Based on a True Story, and in addition to being a novelist, she also writes for the big and small screens. 

Thomas Lilti

Director & screenwriter – France

Credits include: Hippocrates, Irreplaceable, The Freshman. His most significant event of 2018 is the critical and popular success of the Hippocrates TV series, broadcast by Canal+, for which he created and directed all eight episodes.

Guests of Honor

Uma Thurman

Actress – USA

Credits include: Chambers, The Parisian Woman, The House That Jack Built, The Con is On, Down a Dark Hall, The War With Grandpa. Her television and film accolades include NBC’s miniseries The Slap, and Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1. She is best known for her portrayal of Mia Wallace, a sexy mobster's wife in Quentin Tarantino's critically lauded Pulp Fiction and his highly successful Kill Bill film franchise, among many, many others.

Charlie Brooker & Annabel Jones

Screenwriter, producer – UK

Credits include: He is an award-winning writer, producer and broadcaster whose career has spanned TV, radio, print, and online media. She is a producer and long-term collaborator with Charlie Brooker. They are the co-creators and co-showrunners of Black Mirror. The ground-breaking interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch launched on Netflix at the end of 2018. Their other scripted series include the 2008 thriller Dead Set nominated for a Best Drama Serial BAFTA Award.

Freddie Highmore

Actor – UK

Credits include: He currently stars in ABC drama The Good Doctor, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. In 2017, Freddie Highmore wrapped the fifth and final season of the Emmy-nominated Bates Motel as the iconic Norman Bates, for which he was awarded a People’s Choice Award for Best Actor. In addition to starring, he wrote three episodes in the fourth and fifth seasons and made his directorial debut during the show final season.

Yves Rénier

Actor, director – France

Credits include: He starred in popular series including Les Cinq DernièresMinutes, Belphégor, and Les Globe-trotters, before taking the title role in Commissaire Moulin. He has worked in cinema, in films such as Peppermint Soda, Pékin-Central, Frantic, and Les Anges gardiens, and in television, in series including Pour tout l’or du Transvaal, Dolmen, Otages, Section de recherches, and Plus belle la vie.

Éric Rochant

Director, screenwriter, series creator - France

Credits include: He directed several episodes of the series Mafiosa, before creating writing and directing the smash hit series The Bureau. His first feature, Un monde sans pitié, was a box-office hit and became a cult hit for an entire generation. This was followed by Aux yeux du monde, Les Patriotes, Anna Oz, Vive la république !, Total Western, L'École pour tous and Möbius.

Hugo Blick

Writer, director, producer – UK

Credits include: His most recent production, Black Earth Rising, a BBC/Netflix coproduction, was aired in the UK to critical acclaim and launched worldwide by Netflix in late January 2019. Previous productions include the multi-awarded miniseries The Honourable Woman. Previous work includes The Shadow Line starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Christopher Eccleston. He is also an occasional screen actor with credits ranging from Black Earth Rising to Tim Burton’s Batman in which he played the Young Joker.

Series Mania 2019 Official Competition

Baghdad Central (Stephen Butchard, UK)

Chambers (Leah Rachel, USA)

Chimerica (Lucy Kirkwood, UK)

Eden (Edward Berger, Nele Mueller Stöfen, Marianne Wendt, France & Germany)

Identification (Valery Fedorovich, Evgeny Nikishov, Russia)

Just For Today (Nir Bergman, Ram Nehari, Israel)

Lambs of God (Sarah Lambert, Australia)

Mytho (Anne Berest, France)

Twin (Kristoffer Metcalfe, Norway)

The Virtues (Shane Meadows, UK)

French Competition

The Last Wave (Raphaëlle Roudaut, Alexis Le Sec)

Super Jimmy (Camille Pouzol, Stéphane Drouet, Lionel Olenga)

Family Shake (Baya Kasmi)

Osmosis (Audrey Fouché)

Soupçons (Lionel Bailliu, Yann Le Gal)

Une Île (Gaia Guasti, Aurélien Molas)

International Panorama

8 Days (Peter Kocyla, Rafael Parente, Germany)

Asylum City (Eitan Tzur, Uzi Weil, Liad Shoham, Israel)

Blackout (Sergei Ursuliak, Russia)

The Cry (Jacquelin Perske, UK & Australia)

Curfew (Matthew Read, UK)

Exit (Petter Testmann-Koch, Øystein Karlsen, Norway)

Flack (Oliver Lansley, UK)

Folklore (Eric Khoo, Singapore)

The Guest (Seo Jae-won, Gwon So-ra, South Korea)

Hierro (Pepe Coira, Spain & France)

Les Misérables (Andrew Davies, UK)

Monzón (Francisco Varone, Leandro Custo, Gabriel Nicoli, Gabriela Larralde, Jesus Braceras, Agustin Bossi, Pol Bossi, Argentina)

MotherFatherSon (Tom Rob Smith, UK)

Pros And Cons (Thor Bjørn, Denmark)

Success (Marjan Alčevski, Croatia)

Best of USA

The Red Line

The Twilight Zone

Black Monday

I Am The Night

Manifest

Additional portions of Series Mania will include:

Series Mania Forum (Industry arm of Series Mania)

UGC Writers Campus by Series Mania

Short Form Competition

New Season Premieres

All-Night Marathons

All-Night Comedy Marathon

A screening event of Game of Thrones’ most iconic episodes: 7 Seasons of Winter

And also: Special Screenings, Series Mania Culte, Les Séances en Région, Masterclasses and keynotes, Fan Club, Le Village Festival, Le Off de Series Mania.

Final details of the SERIES MANIA’s professional event organized from March 25 to 27 at Lille Grand Palais, SERIES MANIA FORUM, will be shared in the following days.