SeriesLab targets professional scriptwriters, writer-directors and producers from all over the world, the participants will work on drama series projects at an early development stage from September 2023 to early 2024. For the first time, TFL will assign a development grant of € 10,000 to one of the 9 projects selected. On the other hand, SeriesLab Talents takes shape as an international writers room, designed to give voice to 5 professional scriptwriters who want to boost their experience on drama series by working together on one project.
As stated by Angyalosy about SeriesLab: “Among the nine selected projects, there is a colorful palette of genres: we will work with drama, comedy, crime, and thriller; in the form of both continuing and limited series. Besides the contemporary stories, we chose exciting period pieces with a reasonable preliminary budget”.
SERIESLAB PROJECTS 2023
ESTRELLA DEL GREEN
Writer/Director: Denise Moreno (Spain/USA, based in the UK)
Producer: Tony Roberts (UK)
Production company: Common People Films (UK)
Logline: Growing a harvest of debts and a baby in her belly, can a would-be hustler with the help of her vedette grandmother, grow the biggest weed empire in Spain’s Costa Blanca?
Genre: Comedy thriller
EVIL EYE
Creator/Producer: Geo Doba (Romania)
Producer: Gabi Suciu (Romania)
Production company: Atelier de Film
Logline: When a girl disappears in remote Dobrogea, Zuhal, a policewoman of Turkish origins, uncovers a serial killer is on the loose, but to catch him, she'll have to risk losing her family.
Genre: Crime thriller
KOLMANSKOP
Screenwriter/creator: Sven Angene (Germany)
Screenwriter/creator: Judith Rose Gyabaah (Germany)
Producer: Natalie Hölzel (Germany)
Production company: Elfenholz Film GmbH
Logline: When Maryam, an Afro-German lawyer, is chosen by the Spirits of the abandoned mining town Kolmanskop in Namibia, she must prevail against her white Namibian husbands’ family and the vengeful Spirits of the past to bring justice to a land tormented by colonialism.
Genre: Mystery Thriller
PROJECT ALPHA
Writer/Director: Stephan Littger (Germany/USA)
Creative Producer: Lidia Damatto (Brazil)
Production company: MoreThan Films
Logline: During the 1980s, an eminent quantum physicist curious about his field’s mysterious link to consciousness, investigates two teenagers for psychic powers and soon finds compelling evidence. Faced with growing hostility by the faculty and rumors of a hoax, he must decide whether to abandon his research or risk his career by following his own conscience.
Genre: True story/mystery/drama
RENT-A-MAMA
Creator/Writer: Dania Bdeir (Lebanon/Canada, based in UAE)
Writer: Despina Ladi (Greece, based in the UK)
Producer: Sahar Yousefi (Canada)
Production company: Nava Project
Logline: NUHAD (60), a traditional Lebanese woman, lives in the bubble of her suburban immigrant neighborhood. When her husband dies and her daughter rejects her, she decides to move to the city’s hipster enclave and offer her mothering services via an app to ultra-liberal Gen Zers.
Genre: Dramedy
SABENA (Belgium)
Creator/co-writer and showrunner (co-director): Katrien De Groef (Belgium)
Co-writer: Lynn Ryssen (Belgium)
Production company: A Team Productions
Logline: 1969: The Japanese Yayoi applies for a job as a stewardess for the new Sabena Tokyo line. It’s the starting point of her search for the dark side of Sabena, and for her own past.
Genre: Historical fictional drama
SHEHEREZADE (Switzerland)
Writer/Director: Talkhon Hamzavi (Switzerland/Iran)
Writer/Producer: Liliane Ott (Switzerland)
Production company: Kalliopeia Productions
Logline: A feminist re-imagining of a “1001 Nights”: When the rebellious Sheherezade decides to seduce the murderous king Shariar, she must rely on her wits and creativity to survive him and the treacherous court politics while striving to become the first queen with true agency and power.
Genre: Drama / Dramedy / Historical
THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE (Germany)
Writer/Director: Thomas Moritz Helm (Germany)
Logline: To escape bullying, a young outsider befriends a well-known teen criminal, slowly slips into a world full of questionable morals and soon gets caught in a growing dilemma between friendship, crime, and his own safety.
Genre: Drama / Coming-of-age
THE PROMOTER (Italy/Germany)
Writer/Director: Elisa Mishto (Italy, based in Germany)
Producer: Hana Geißendörfer (Germany/United Kingdom)
Logline: The Promoter follows the controversial rise and fall of young female boxing promoter Clio while she navigates the socially intricate and financially decaying world of German boxing with fellow promoters and rivals, an illegal gambling boss, and an up-and-coming Afd candidate.
Genre: Crime Drama
What about SeriesLab Talents 2023? Our Head of Studies revealed: “We aimed to build a team of writers with different ages, backgrounds, sensibilities, and levels of professional experience. I am glad to say that we selected highly talented and dedicated writers willing to put in the hard work required by the TV writing profession. I am confident that all five participants have great potential to thrive in this competitive field.”
The 5 writers come from different places and have a different background: Nuno Baltazar is a Portuguese filmmaker, born and raised in sunny Lisboa who is already in the TFL community since he took part in TFL Extended TV Series in 2020 and in TFL NEXT (Film) in 2021; Jade Courtney Edwards is an Irish/English writer-director hailing from London, her scripts have been selected for Cine Qua Non’s Revision lab, CineStory TV Lab, Stowe Story Labs, Dynamic Television Fellowship; you can find Giulio Fabroni’s name on Italian tv shows like Nudes and Un Posto al Sole, he’s been a regular in the writers’ room of Marco Belardi’s Bamboo Production and his film debut A Lupo (finalist at Biennale College) will soon see the light; Fanny Nussbaumer from Switzerland is also a familiar face, since her participation to the TFL Next Comedy in 2022, she graduated from the Drehbuchwerkstatt München and won the Script Talent Award in 2020; finally, Zero Pilnik is an actor, writer, and Drag King from São Paulo, based in Berlin, they received fellowships from Akademie der Künste, LABA Berlin, and the 2017 Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in Storytelling Arts.
You can read more about the selection in the dedicated article on Variety.
SeriesLab and SeriesLab Talents are organised by TorinoFilmLab – National Museum of Cinema, co-funded by Creative Europe - MEDIA Sub-programme of the European Union and with the support of Millimeter Film and VAF - Flanders Audiovisual Fund. SeriesLab Talents is also organised in partnership with FOCAL.