SeriesMakers Reveals Full Details With Projects From Brian De Palma and ‘Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire’ Producers (EXCLUSIVE)

Projects from Jennifer Weiss, producer of Brian de Palma’s “Redacted,” and South Africa’s Nomvuselelo Dlamini who made the “Surf Sangoma” episode of Disney’s “Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire” feature in the lineup of this year’s Series Mania’s Seriesmakers. 

They rub shoulders with titles from notable young directors such as Nicolas Silhol as well as Serielizados winner “Fortune Cookie.”

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Organized by the Series Mania Institute and Beta, the indie European TV-film powerhouse, Series Mania weighs in as one of Europe’s prestige development labs, focusing on filmmakers and TV directors aiming to make their first drama series as its driving creative force. 

The 2026 SeriesMakers packs an eclectic lineup, driven by creators’ strongly singular voices. That, said, at least one trend emerges. “Series continue to play their role as sensitive seismographs, offering warnings, resistance, and possible escape routes,” Laurence Herszberg and Frédéric Lavigne, Series Mania managing director and artistic director, write in a analysis of this year’s festival trends. This is natural at an event that has done more than any other TV festival in Europe to center drama series as a central part of contemporary culture and indeed of a contemporary world. 

Some of the 10 projects at SeriesMakers are deadly serious: “Cesium 137,” “Ghosts of Marseille,” “Kris” and “Lot 55 – Dorothy Stang: A Death Foretold.” Many, however, grapple with large issues but lift off soon into comedy or fantasy, often departing from a humdrum – to take the title of Patricia Kelly’s project – reality, whether the work of a court transcriber, middle-aged suburbs, a church in South Africa or a new train route project. Doing so, they deliver kind of social-issue escapism. 

Eligible director-producer or director-writer teams from over the world have been closely mentored and guided by experienced and awarded creatives while working on their series and developing a full pitch deck, SeriesMakers said Friday, releasing loglines to the projects.  

The winning team will be announced March 24 during the Series Mania Forum, which runs March 24-26 as part of the Forum’s Co-Pro Pitching Award sessions, its industry centerpiece.

Speakers at SeriesMania have taken in “Skins” co-creator Bryan Elsley, now with “Counsels” at next Monday’s Series Mania Buyers Upfront, Isabelle Lindberg Pechou (“Trom,” “Last Light”), writer-producer Nicola Lusuardi (“1992,” “1994,” “Romulus”) and Frédéric Lavigne and François-Pier Pélinard-Lambert (Series Mania).

Other speakers have been Franziska An der Gassen (Apple TV Germany), Marianne Furevold at Norwegian pubcaster NRK, which backed 2025 Series Mania winner “Requiem for Selina,” and Ana Diez Pereda, from Movistar+, behind “Anatomy of a Moment,” which plays Series Mania 2026 main competition on Sunday.

Gabor Krigler (“Terápia”), Donna Sharpe (“West of Liberty”), Angeli MacFarlane (“Lola”), and Mariano Baselga (“The Head”) have served as mentors.

SeriesMakers is now headed by Marianne Guillon, director of the Series Mania Institute, and Ferdinand Dohna, head of content & co-production of Beta. Seriesmakers was launched in 2022 by Herszberg and Koby Gal Raday, CEO Janeiro Studios.

Here’s a closer look at the titles quoting from official loglines:

“Cesium 137” (writer-director Fabio Meira, producer Tatiana Leite 

(Brazil, 4×60’, drama, based on true events)

A fictionalised deep dive into the second biggest radioactive accident in history when scavengers in Goiâna, Brazil in 1987 unwittingly sold to neighbors 40 TBq of Caesium-137 found in a hospital radiation-therapy machine. “Cesium 137” will focus in part on “the chain of errors committed by the highest levels of public authority.”  which, along with “the ignorance of ordinary citizens,” “destroyed families and left unhealed wounds.” From Meira whose debut, “Two Irenes,” bowed at Berlin’s Generation K-Plus and Leite, behind Sundance-selected “Loveling” and Leite, one of Brazil’s top international co-producers (“Puan”).  

“Chachachá!” (writer-director Alison Fairweather Murray, producer Jennifer Weiss) 

Canada, 8×30’, drama-comedy

“When a Gen X woman’s sky-high blood pressure forces her to confront how out of touch with herself she has become, she turns to Latin dancing – not for fun, but for survival – igniting chaos with her family,” the logline runs. Behind the Apple TV, AmazonPrime and HBOMax-streamed “Ariel Back to Buenos Aires” Fairweather Murray teams with Weiss, producer of movies by Sarah Polley (“Away From Her”), Brian de Palma (“Redacted”), Atom Egoyan  (Adoration”) and most lately Molly McGlynn (“Fitting In”).   

“Fortune Cookie” (writer-director Adrián Saba, producer Fernando Sánchez-Cabezudo)

Spain, 6×45’ comedy-thriller

“When a delivery girl steps through a secret portal in the basement of a restaurant in Madrid’s Chinatown and disappears, her mother begins a relentless search, uncovering a drug‑smuggling operation between two families.” Winner of best series at Barcelona TV fest Serielizados’ Mind the Gap, created by Saba (“The Erection of Toribio Bardelli,” “The Cleaner”). The low-fi sci-fi drama thriller teams Saba with Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, co-director of milestone Spanish premium series “Crematorium” and now the anticipated “Killing a Bear,” here serving as producer, based out of Newen-owned Kubik Films. 

“Game Knights of the Middle Age,” (writer-director Craig Wallace and producer Sarah Timmins)

Canada, 10×30,’ mystery comedy 

“Middle-aged members of a suburban “Dungeons & Dragons”-esque role playing group must solve their Game Master’s murder or take the fall for his death or become the next victims.” From Toronto-based Black Birds Entertainment partners Wallace – who has helmed episodes of “Dead Still” (RTÉ/Acorn), “Slasher” (Netflix), “Murdoch Mysteries” (CBC), “Dark Matter” (SyFy) and “Freakish” (Hulu) – and Timmins whose NBC/CTV medical drama “Transplant” aired in 165 countries worldwide.

“Ghosts of Marseille” (writer-director Nicolas Silhol, producer Clémence Lavigne)

France, 6×52’, political crime thriller

“A brutal attack in present-day Marseille forces a fearless trainee journalist and a disillusioned cop to confront the ghosts of the bloody summer of 1973 – and sends them on a race to stop history repeating itself.” Silhol won admirers with 2017’s Karlovy Vary competitor “Corporate,” a “smart, slow-simmering French workplace thriller,” said Variety. Here he’s joined by Lavigne, the respected former sales agent at Celluloid Dreams and The Party Film Sales.   

“Humdrum” (writer-director-producer Patricia Kelly)

Ireland, 6×40’, crime dramedy 

“A freelance court transcriber whose life is in the toilet inappropriately interferes in the cases she types to find justice for victims, but quickly loses sight of what’s right and what’s very wrong.” The first series from multi-hyphenate Kelly whose first feature, 2023’s second-chance drama “Verdigris,” has won a bevy of awards on the festival circuit. The project is set up at Kelly’s label MnáMná Films and is a winner of the 2024 Fís TV Pitching Competition. She went on to further develop it at the Stowe Story Connemara Lab 2024 as a Screen Ireland fellow and at the Sundance Episodic Lab 2025. 

“Kris,” (aka “Roma Boys,” co-directors and co-writers David Tišer, Rozalie Kohoutová, producer Kohoutová,)

Czech Republic, 6×30,’ drama)

“When Zojko and Ricco, two Romani boys from radically different social worlds, fall in love, their relationship endangers the ones closest to them. They must both make profound sacrifices in order to discover who they truly are.” The first series from Tišer, the first Roma LGBTQ activist in the Czech Republic, and Kohoutová, whose “Gottland” made a splash at the Jihlava Documentary Film Festival.  

“Lot 55 – Dorothy Stang: A Death Foretold”(writer-director Felipe Mucci, producer Alfredo Manevy)

Brazil, 5×60’, political thriller

“In one of the most important trials of the 21st century, a young prosecutor races against time to uncover the culprits behind the murder of an American nun in the Amazon Rainforest before she becomes their next victim.” Mucci directed the well-received “Falling in Love With My Brother’s Fiancee.” Here he’s created a story anchored in the aftermath of Amazonian activist Stang’s haunting murder in 2005. 

“Sunday Service, (director Samkelo Makhanya, writer-producer Nomvuselelo Dlamini) 

South Africa, 12×30’, comedy

“When a tone deaf worship leader tricks her church into filming a ‘comeback’ documentary, what begins as a vanity project unravels into a chaotic Faith Testing Campaign to save their building from eviction.” Dlamini produced an episode of Disney’s animated sci-fi anthology “Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.” 

“The Tree” (writer-director Akihiro Hata, producer Clément Duboin)

France, 6×25’, fantasy/thriller

“An ancient intelligent forest materialises the unconscious of those who venture into it, to defend itself against the Eurol∞p train project. Anna, deputy project manager of Eurol∞p, soon finds herself torn between her mission and defending the forest, without knowing the true nature of the project.” Hata directed “Grand Ciel,” which bowed at last year’s Venice Horizons. Duboin has co-produced standout Latin American talent, such as Brazil’s Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra (Locarno winner “Good Manners”) and Argentina’s Pablo Gorgelli (“Invisible”).