We are proud to announce the conclusion of another successful cycle of Serial Eyes! The fifth edition of the programme ended on May 17 with a brilliant pitch event at the Soho House Berlin. Almost 80 guests attended the session – producers, broadcasters and agents arrived from different parts of Europe to find out about the new TV series that our participants have developed over the past nine months. And the Serial Eyes participants hit the ball out of the park!
After a warm welcome by DFFB director Ben Gibson and a keynote address by Real Film’s managing director Henning Kamm, we quickly moved to the first participant’s pitch. Daniel Hendler started the day with his procedural series Exit Counsel about a very special type of counsellor who breaks people out of mind-controlling groups. Full of energy, Heidi Baletic’s I’m Not Angry took us into the world of an angry London single mum, who has to control her rage impulses in order to retain custody of her daughter. Harry Ayiotis’ The Second is set in a dystopian, post-Brexit UK where duelling to the death is brought back as a means to reinstate honour and justice. Dean Movshovitz closed out the first set with his family drama The Committee, the story of two Jewish brothers trying to protect their family in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Barbara Kronenberg’s Me, Myself & Who? opened the second block of the Final Pitch. Her dramedy about a young athlete who finds out she is neither a man nor a woman is the story of a quest for personal and sexual identity. Sci-fi could not be absent from the great variety of projects. Tali Barde presented The Creator, the story of an ambitious and cynical programmer who builds a simulated virtual reality only to see her son’s consciousness trapped inside. Isaure Pisani-Ferry brought us to the charming wineries of the Loire valley with Winemakers, the story of a young second-generation immigrant wine-forger seeking to reproduce the glorious Grand Cru once produced by this region. Conservative and progressive ideologies clash in the political tale created by Samuel Jefferson, Independent. The series focuses on a gay actor, running independently as candidate for London Mayor, and his major political rival, who happens to be his mother – the current Prime Minister of Great Britain.
After the lunch break, Janina Dahse pitched The Bettermanns, the story of a TV producer forced to confront her hated mother, a former German TV star, and their dirty family secrets in the reality TV business. Afterwards, Ivan Knezevic presented his dark comedy The Vow, about a female lawyer whose past catches up with her when her father, the head of prominent crime family, unexpectedly dies. Beatrice Huber’s darkly funny series Nopocalypse deals with questions of responsibility against the backdrop of an apocalypse that did not happen. Last but not least, Bernardo Pellegrini presented Matter, a science drama set in the seventies that deals with national rivalries for scientific primacy and the ambitions of an obsessed physicist.
After the pitches the guests had the chance to network and talk to the participants about their projects in a relaxed get-together. You can find more information on the projects here. You can also find details on the digital series and procedural series projects developed in the Serial Eyes writers’ rooms, in collaboration with industry partners Vivendi and RTL.
It was a great event, and we would like to thank all our guests and friends for their participation and our partners for the continued support. A heartfelt thank you goes to our tutors, lecturers and mentors, whose guidance has been crucial in the development of these projects. Congratulations to our class of 2017/18 – a very talented and creative group, with whom we enjoyed working thoroughly these past nine months.