Cannes has helped Lille make Series Mania an even bigger success than previous years.
The closing of MIPTV, which took place in Cannes, in the south of France, in early April, has moved an even larger business crowd to Lille, a city in the north of France, in March, for the three-day Forum (the professional part of the Series Mania Festival), that ends today, Thursday, March 27.
March 25 opened with a record 83 exhibiting companies on four levels of the Lille Convention Center, the Lille Grand Palais. The response has been overwhelming from TV content distribution companies, to the point that U.S. studio executives are e-mailing folks to ask: “Are you in Lille?”
In addition to the Forum, the Series Mania event encompasses a TV Festival open to the public, with some 350 entries screened in various venues throughout the city, which started on March 21 and will end on March 28, 2025. The Forum consists of TV conferences devoted to the development and production of international TV series (with some 55 conferences and keynotes), including the Co-Pro Pitching sessions, which this year bestowed a 50,000 euro (U.S. $54,000) prize to French/Japanese comedy-romance Tokyo Crush. The conferences had a big Hollywood studio imprint, with yesterday’s panel featuring Paramount Global Content Distribution’s Lisa Kramer, but today’s keynote from Gerhard Zeiler of Warner Bros. Discovery was cancelled. Some panels also featured elaborate presentations, like yesterday’s Netflix preview of its upcoming offerings.
This year, for the first time, there was a “Buyers Upfront” held on the Forum’s opening day, March 24, at the Lille Chamber of Commerce building. The “Upfront” was an invitation-only event for some of the mostly European 120 buyers (out of the many more that are roaming the Palais) that showcased clips from 10 series that have global appeal. This first Upfront saw Gaumont’s thriller series The Deal winning the first annual “Buyers Choice Award.”
Overall, this 2025 event is expected to welcome 4,600 participants — more than last year’s record 4,000 delegates from 60 countries.
Above, scenes from Lille. Top left: Inter Medya’s Beatriz Cea Okan, Hasret Okan, and Sinem Aliskan; Just for Entertainment Distribution’s Alex Avon and Zoé Crabtree; Francesco Capurro, director of Series Mania Forum; Netflix’s elaborate presentation; the “From Co-Production to Distribution” panel with Lisa Kramer, Paramount Global Content Distribution and Lindsey Martin (center), CBS Studios; the exhibitors’ list; VideoAge‘s floor presence.
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