Kevin McDonald, Eric Matti and Barbara Albert
Ferda Demir/Getty Images; Courtesy of Series Mania (2)
Projects by Oscar-winning Scottish director Kevin Macdonald (Last King of Scotland), Filipino filmmaker Eric Matti (In work) and the Austrian author Barbara Albert (North Rim) have been selected as the most promising new TV pitches at this year's Series Mania festival.
McDonald's George BlakeA real-life spy thriller about the legendary double agent and Matty The squatterThe East-meets-West crime saga, about an undercover Filipino maid and a determined Ukrainian detective, won this year's Beta Development Awards and will receive $54,000 (€50,000) each in development cash from European production and sales company Beta Group.
In addition to his feature work, this includes Mauritanian With Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster, and Game level Starring Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe, Macdonald has directed several acclaimed documentaries, including an Oscar-winning one. One day in September (2000), in 2004 Touching the void and 2013s Marley.
Matty's crime thriller In Exercise 2: Missing 8 It premiered in Venice in 2021, where it earned star John Arcilla a Best Actor award. His other credits include 2019 Drug trafficking And Respect your father (2016)
Albert's North Rim It premiered in competition at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. His 2003 feature Free radical Screened in Locarno and his period drama Miss Paradise It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2017.
Beta's content division, led by CCO Kobi Kal Rade, will work closely with the teams behind the two projects to bring the pitches to the pilot script and packaging stage.
Albert's Sleeping SwansA dark mystery drama about a mysterious disease that strikes the children of a small East German town has been awarded a €20,000 ($21,700) bursary as the winner of the Kirch Foundation Award, presented in association with the University of Television and Film in Munich.
Israeli Project, That hole, won the Serial Producers of the Year award presented by Serial Mania's Forum Industry Division. The show pitch from creators Orit Fouks Rotem, Adi Goral, Batya Deil and Miri Milstein is a drama about a marriage counselor who transforms an Orthodox „prayer hotline” into strengthening women's faith. Social.
The project will receive $22,000 in development funding to bring this idea to the small screen.