Launched last year by Series Mania and Germany’s Beta Group to support the talents moving from cinema to series, the initiative SERIESMAKERS has selected its second round of winners, recognising three projects among the ten which were selected (read the news) and whose teams benefitted from a bespoke training programme delivered by renowned consultants.

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A development grant of a value of 50,000 € from Beta went to George Blake, a project carried by Scotland’s Kevin Macdonald (famous in cinema for films such as The Last King of Scotland [+leggi anche:
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The second grant of 50,000 € from Beta went to The Squatter by Filipino director Erik Matti (who was in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2013 with On the Job and in Venice competition in 2021 with On the Job : The Missing 8) associated with fellow Filipino producer Ronald Monteverde. This 8 x 52’ project brings together a dead body in a rural town, a fraudulent London charity, and an East-meets-West crime story. With their hopes and futures at stake, a secretive Filipino maid and a tenacious Ukrainian detective must unravel the mysteries of a crime, just as the crime itself reveals who they truly are.

Finally, a grant of 20,000 € provided by the Kirch Foundation (in collaboration with HFF - University of Television and Film Munich) went to the German project Sleeping Swans which brings together Austrian director Barbara Albert (selected in competition in Venice with Nordrand and Falling [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Barbara Albert
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The recipients of this year’s two Beta Development Awards will work closely with Beta’s Content and Co-Production Divisions to develop the pilot script and a complete package.

On the occasion of the awards ceremony, Series Mania Forum director Francesco Capurro (read our interview) announced that the call for projects for the third edition of SERIESMAKERS would open soon. For the record, the first edition had crowned Juho Kuosmanen, César Díaz, and Beatriz Seigner (read the news).