14 There seems to be a movement to dethrone Series Mania, the king of TV conferences devoted to the development and production of international TV series that will take place in Lille, in northern France, March 25-27. Today, in addition to Lille, we have Turin, in northern Italy, with SerialMania (held October 14, 2024 to February 24, 2025); Cannes, in southern France, with Canneseries (April 2429, 2025); and Cologne, in northern Germany, with Seriencamp (June 3-5, 2025). Nevertheless, Series Mania is still the world’s premier TV series conference and festival, even though this year, after several years of growth, the number of TV series submitted to the festival has stabilized at around 350 from a wide range of countries, while the number of conferences and keynotes reaches 55 — all of which are broadcast live and available on replay. Overall, the 2025 event is expected to welcome more than last year’s record number of 4,000 participants from 60 countries, possibly, according to Francesco Capurro, director of Series Mania Forum, due to the closing of MIPTV in Cannes, leaving the month of April without a trade show. This is despite the fact that, pointed out Capurro, “Our DNA is more content and financial developments and co-productions.” Capurro added that the closing of MIPTV would “for sure increase the number of participants,” but he declined to confirm whether next year’s Series Mania would take advantage of the spring vacuum by moving the event toward a more climatecongenial April. The Series Mania Forum (the professional portion of the festival) continues its expansion within the Lille Grand Palais with new exhibition and networking zones offering more meeting spaces for participants and exhibitors. The Business Square joins the Delegates’ Hall and the Business Lounge, both of which are fully booked with more than 60 exhibitors, including All3Media, Inter Medya, Cineflix, NHK, BBC Studios, and for the first time, StudioCanal. This year, the (professional) Forum section will unfold March 25-27 at the Lille Convention Center (Lille Grand Palais), while on March 24, the first “Buyers Upfront” event will be staged at the Lille Chamber of Commerce building. The festival, conference, and market will take place in various venues throughout the city. The “Upfront” is an invitation-only event for some 100 buyers, showcasing excerpts from 10 series that have global appeal. Via a videoconference interview, Capurro said that, although only 100 buyers will be invited to the Upfronts, “A larger number of content buyers will be roaming throughout the Festival and Forum.” Curated by the Series Mania Festival’s artistic team, the Upfronts will include series about to be released or still in post-production. They will consist of up to 10 series (from an original 12) and each series will be given a 15-minute screen slot. The popularity of TV series festivals around the world seems to go hand-in-hand with international political and social drama. Last year, the Russo-Ukrainian and Israel–Hamas conflicts drastically reduced the number of applicants from those territories. Then there were the Hollywood strikes that paralyzed film and TV production in the U.S. for several months, which explained why the 2024 lineup contained fewer American premieres. This year, Series Mania will be facing the consequences of the Los Angeles metro areas’ fires that destroyed 18,000 structures and displaced thousands of people, and the election of an unpredictable U.S. president, Donald Trump. Plus, stated Laurence Herszberg, Series Mania’s founder and general director, “the audiovisual industry is now facing three major challenges: A funding crisis marked by a battle to capture advertising budgets; a sociological challenge given today’s shift to social platforms; and an industrial revolution, driven by AI.” These topics will be discussed at the Lille Dialogues on March 27. Not that the competing TV series events will fare better, with the organizers of the Turin event declining to say whether SerialMania will be an annual happening or just a one-time affair. On the Canneseries side, RX, which organizes MIPCOM Cannes, will no longer be associated with Canneseries, since the April MIPTV market ended its run and the inaugural MIP London event took its place, but in February. MIPCOM added Cannes to its name recently, perhaps to appease the city of Cannes, what with MIP relocating to London. As a result, Canneseries, the municipalityorganized TV festival, is losing its sidekick. This situation is similar to what happened with the Monte Carlo Festival after the closing of the associated Monte Carlo TV market. The Canneseries press office did not reply to our inquiry as to whether it’s planning to go solo or is in search of a new partner. However, we found out that, unofficially, the province of Alpes-Cote D’Azur (PACA for short, where Cannes is located) will chip in with support and logistics. Francesco Capurro, director of Series Mania Forum At Series Mania 2024: (l. to r.) Inter Medya’s Sinem Aliskan, Can Okan, Beatriz Cea Okan TV Series Spearhead an International Conference Mania VIDEOAGE February 2025 Series Mania Preview
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