SERIAL EYES

Admissions 

The call for applic­a­tion to Seri­al Eyes#13 (start­ing in Septem­ber 2025) is closed. 

Each year, we select twelve tal­en­ted writers to join Seri­al Eyes. The next applic­a­tion round for the cohort start­ing in Septem­ber 2026 (SE#14), will open in Decem­ber 2025. Shall you have any ques­tions in the mean­time, do not hes­it­ate to reach out to info@​serial-​eyes.​de.

YOU ARE SET TO BECOME A SERI­AL EYES#13, IF… 

  • You are pas­sion­ate about TV series devel­op­ment and eager to work col­lab­or­at­ively with fel­low creatives. 
  • You are a ded­ic­ated pro­fes­sion­al with at least three years of paid exper­i­ence in writ­ing, dir­ect­ing, or pro­du­cing scrip­ted con­tent with­in the audi­ovisu­al industry. 
  • You own the cred­its for at least one pro­duced epis­ode for a seri­al­ized format for a TV chan­nel or a plat­form, show­cas­ing your storytelling talent. 
  • You are flu­ent in Eng­lish (both spoken and writ­ten) and able to work in a diverse, inter­na­tion­al environment. 
  • You are com­mit­ted to attend­ing full-time in Ber­lin and fully par­ti­cip­at­ing in all work­shops, lec­tures, and study trips. 
  • You hold a pass­port from a European Uni­on (EU) or asso­ci­ated coun­try (Ice­land, Nor­way, Albania, Bos­nia and Herzegov­ina, North Mace­do­nia, Montenegro, Repub­lic of Ser­bia, Geor­gia, Mol­dova, Ukraine, or Tunisia). If none of the above-men­tioned coun­tries is yours, do not des­pair! Each year we grant up to 3 spots for applic­ants ori­gin­at­ing from out­side Europe. 

APPLIC­A­TION PRO­CESS OVERVIEW 

We aim to make the applic­a­tion pro­cess trans­par­ent and access­ible for all our aspir­ing writers. In select­ing our next twelve par­ti­cipants, we shall also take account of the over­all com­pos­i­tion of the group (gender/​country mix) and the con­tri­bu­tion the applic­ant will make to the peers. Below the timeline of your applic­a­tion steps : 

  • Decem­ber – March: Register and apply to Seri­al Eyes through our applic­a­tion tool. We know it takes time to sub­mit a good applic­a­tion, so do not hes­it­ate to reach out to our team for ques­tions! You can find an over­view of the required doc­u­ments below.
  • March: Our exper­i­enced Seri­al Eyes Read­ers, all industry pro­fes­sion­als, will screen and review your applic­a­tion. After review­ing applic­a­tions, selec­ted can­did­ates will be invited to an online inter­view (approx. 20 minutes) with our selec­tion team, which con­sists of our Head of Stud­ies Kat­rin Merkel and a second tutor. 
  • April: Upon con­firm­a­tion of the inter­view date, the 20 short­l­is­ted can­did­ates will receive a cre­at­ive brief and a short writ­ing assign­ment, to be com­pleted with­in 2–3 days. This addi­tion­al task assesses both cre­at­ive skills and the abil­ity to work under tight dead­lines, provid­ing essen­tial insights ahead of the online interview. 
  • By the first week of May, you can expect a final decision on your applic­a­tion. Selec­ted can­did­ates will then have a few days to con­firm their par­ti­cip­a­tion with the team.
  • Mid-May – June: Once you have been selec­ted and con­firmed your place in Seri­al Eyes, pre­par­a­tions for your stay in Ber­lin will begin imme­di­ately. Our team will guide you through the logist­ics of relo­cat­ing to a new city, includ­ing sign­ing your par­ti­cip­a­tion agree­ment and arran­ging the Seri­al Eyes fee pay­ment in two install­ments. We will also help con­nect you with your cohort to ensure a smooth trans­ition and a strong sense of com­munity from the start.

TO APPLY, YOU WILL NEED… 

  • CV with detailed work, train­ing exper­i­ence and filmo­graphy (if applic­able) and if so, make sure to out­line the pro­duced episodes.
  • Per­son­al let­ter of motiv­a­tion out­lining why you would like to par­ti­cip­ate in the Seri­al Eyes pro­gram, your expect­a­tions and your pro­fes­sion­al goals for the next 3–5 years (max. num­bers of char­ac­ters 3800)
  • For applic­ants request­ing a tuition fee waiver: an applic­a­tion let­ter that spe­cifies the fin­an­cial reas­ons for the tuition waiver request
  • Ana­lys­is of a recent scrip­ted TV drama series. The ana­lys­is must dis­cuss the main character’s emo­tion­al arc, the arena (time and set­ting), the main conflict(s) and the struc­ture of the series (max. num­bers of char­ac­ters 3800)
  • Pro­pos­als for two poten­tial TV series con­cepts you would like to devel­op at Seri­al Eyes. Both pro­jects should be ori­gin­al, but should have dif­fer­ent pro­files: One of the pro­jects should be more mar­ket-ori­ented (i.e. com­mer­cially viable) and the oth­er more pas­sion-driv­en. Both pro­jects should be at an early stage of devel­op­ment and should not have too long a devel­op­ment his­tory. Both pro­pos­als have  a char­ac­ter lim­it of 2,200–2,500 each.
  • A full-length screen­play (fea­ture film, TV drama or com­edy) in Eng­lish. If no Eng­lish-lan­guage script is avail­able, you can sub­mit a full-length script in its ori­gin­al lan­guage plus an excerpt of 10 pages from that script trans­lated into Eng­lish. Scripts should be format­ted in stand­ard industry format.
  • A let­ter of recom­mend­a­tion in Eng­lish by a pro­du­cer or broad­caster you worked with.

All applic­a­tion mater­i­als must be in Eng­lish and sub­mit­ted online via our regis­tra­tion website. 

THE COST OF SERI­AL EYES 

The pro­gram fee is 4,500€. It cov­ers tuition, trav­el­ing (flights accom­mod­a­tion) for the two study trips and the writers retreat in Branden­burg, as well as the fest­iv­al accred­it­a­tion for Séries Mania in Lille (March 2026). Pay­ment is flex­ible, with install­ment options avail­able over the summer.

Each year, Seri­al Eyes offers three tuition waivers based on applic­ants’ poten­tial in the European audi­ovisu­al industry, fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances, back­ground, and the status of the loc­al film industry. Thanks to MEDI­A’s gen­er­ous sup­port, the waiver fully cov­ers tuition fees. 

While rent in Ber­lin typ­ic­ally ranges from 600€ to 1,000€ per month and is not included in the pro­gram, our Seri­al Eyes team will sup­port your hous­ing search. We can con­nect you with our alumni net­work and vari­ous accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders to assist with find­ing suit­able options

FAQ