Festival In Focus: Series Mania’s Laurence Herszberg & Francesco Capurro On Industry Trends, The Rise Of Co-Production And How ‘Succession’ Inspired A New Wave Of Family-Themed Drama
28.02.2024 - 17:44
/ deadline.com
Series Mania brings the world of drama together every year in March in Lilles, France. It has public screenings and competition strands spanning various types of scripted TV. The industry component, the Forum, includes the Co-Production Pitching Sessions, which have become one of the event’s signature elements.
Less than three weeks out from the latest edition, Founder and General Director of Series Mania, Laurence Herszberg, and Francesco Capurro, Director, Series Mania Forum, stepped away from the last-minute travails of organizing a festival to give Deadline the low-down on what to expect this time.
Deadline: It’s almost showtime, thanks for finding the time. You spend the year getting Series Mania together, what’s changed since last time and how will you adapt?
Laurence Herszberg: What we do during the year gives us time to monitor the evolution of the industry, which is a key to our success – all year long we’re connected to the industry. Series Mania Forum was built on asking, ‘how can we provide the industry with answers, contacts and new projects?’ We consider ourselves as a tool, a toolbox for the industry.
It’s key when you are running a festival or a market to understand you have to adapt all of the time. The industry has changed a lot. We have all seen the evolution of the streamers, and we know that we are not at peak TV anymore. Now, it’s about producing less, but producing better and to being able to reach your audience.
Deadline: Where does Series Mania Forum fit into the TV calendar?
Francesco Capurro: It’s really the place where the studios, the streamers and the broadcasters can find the best producers and talents from all over the world. This has been our positioning since the beginning. We have