Serielizados Fest announces programming and guests of its 6th edition, celebrated in both Barcelona and Madrid

The 6th edition of the International TV Festival, Serielizados Fest, will be held on 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 of September in Barcelona, at CCCB -Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona-, being the main space, SGAE and Sala Phenomena. For its 1st edition in Madrid, on 27, 28, 29 and 30 of September, Serielizados Fest will have the Palacio de la Prensa as its main venue, and will schedule activities at the Academia del Cine and Sala Berlanga.

For its 1st edition in Madrid, it will make a selection of Barcelona’s activities, programming premieres of TV-series from the sections of ‘Panorama’ and ‘Premieres’ and talks on the 28th and 29th of September at the Palacio de la Prensa. It will also hold the Fiction Pilots Showcase, which will provide a masterclass and a screening of the runner up’s pilots at Sala Berlanga of Fundación SGAE on Monday the 30th of September of the Serielizados Fest Madrid.

Denmark, guest country

If Serielizados Fest in 2017 was focused on Italy, and in 2018 on Island, this year it will focus on Denmark, one of the big and influential powers of television from around the world. The leading figure of this section will be Jeppe Gjervig (author of ‘Borgen‘) who will present the Spanish premiere of his new show ‘Follow the money III’ and discuss ‘Borgen’ and his career with the festival’s audience. Both activities will take place on the 28th of September. 

In addition to ‘Follow the money III’, the festival will premiere two more Danish TV-series as part of the Guest Country section: ‘The new nurses’ (SF Studios), a drama set in the 20th century that tells the story of the first men who wanted to study and practise as nurses; and ‘Doggystyle’ (DR), about the first failure of a young girl whose dream of being an actress doesn’t come true and finds herself coming back home. 

International guests

One of the big names of this 6th edition of the festival is the British creator Steve Pemberton (‘Psychoville’, ‘The League of Gentlemen’), who has reached global recognition with his black comedy ‘Inside No 9’, show where he co-stars and which earned him a BAFTA 2019 award to best comedy actor. Pemberton will provide an open talk and will be hosting the international premiere of the fifth season of the show. The previous ones are availables in Filmin. This activity will take place on Friday the 27th of September. 

The composer Isobel Waller-Bridge will be another of the big guests of the 6th edition of Serielizados Fest. The British artist is the author of music scores for television and among her recent works we can find ‘Fleabag’, ‘Black Mirror’, ‘The ABC Murders’ and ‘Vanity Fair’. Waller-Bridge will provide a masterclass as part of the section ‘Behind the Scenes’ on the 27th of September about musical composition for students and professionals the media sector, as well as a talk for general audience on the 28th of September about the influence of music on contemporary fiction. 

Seriefobia live

Seriefobia is one of the great emerging podcasts of the year, being included on the TOP 10 most relevant podcasts of 2019 according to iTunes. The first TV-series hatecast of all time presented by Toni Garcia Ramon and Óscar Broc will also have its own place in Serielizados Fest. A live Seriefobia that will be attended by a very special guest. This activity will be on the 26th of September. 

More guests, both national and international, will be announced over the next months. 

TV-series premieres

The festival will premiere over twenty shows, all divided in two sections: Panorama, a selection of the best international TV-series which still don’t have distribution in Spain, and Premieres, previews of the new shows of the main online platforms.

The first confirmed TV-series of Panorama 2019, besides the three Danish shows mentioned, are the Norwegians ‘Match’, one of the most original sitcoms of the season; ‘Twin’, a ‘nordic’ style pure drama starred by Kristofer Hivju (‘Game of Thrones’); and another three Norwegian series from the influential public station NRK that were conceived after the teen phenomenon ‘SKAM’: ‘17’, ‘Kongen av Ulset’ (The king of Ulset) and ‘Lovleg’. 

‘Invisible heroes’, one of the most ambitious coproductions between two countries -Chile and Finland- of the year, closed at Conecta Fiction in 2017, will also be seen in the festival. The South Korean ‘The Guest’, the last TV phenomenon of the asian country, will also be premiered in Spain at Serielizados Fest after being at the French festival Series Mania; and the Israeli ‘Nehama’, a TV-series halfway between drama and Coenesque comedy that won a best actor award at Canneseries for the performance of Reshef Levi. 

As part of national TV-series section, we find two Catalan productions. The first one is the premiere of the second season of ‘Les Molèsties’ (betevé), a comedy written and directed by Roger Coma (‘Les coses grans’), and ‘El mort viu’ (The Death Alive), produced by betevé and Compacto, whose pilot won the Ondas award in 2016 and the Fiction Pilots Showcase 2015, organized by Serielizados. 

More premieres of the sections Premieres and Panorama will be announced over the next months.

Tributes

As it is already a tradition, Serielizados Fest organizes a Tribute to a key figure of our television. If in 2017 it was Chicho Ibáñez Serrador and in 2018 it was Maria Aurèlia Capmany, in this 6th edition the organization wanted to honour the memory of Joan Capri, considered one of the first big monologuists of Calalonia, creator of the show ‘Doctor Caparrós’ (RTVE, 1979).

Furthermore, the festival will pay a special tribute to ‘Plats Bruts’ on the 20th anniversary of its premiere. This TV-series marked a whole generation of spectators and screenwriters in Catalonia, and was inspired straightaway by British BBC shows such as ‘The Young Ones’ or ‘Fawlty Towers’.  For this occasion, the festival will gather some of its cast and creative team in an encounter dedicated to the fans.

‘Behind the Scenes’, a section behind the scenes

One of the big novelties of the 6th edition of Serielizados Fest is the new section Behind the Scenes, aimed at an audience of both media professionals and students. In this new section there will be several masterclassese about various disciplines, runned by noted professionals of the sector. 

The first confirmed names for this section are Clara Roquet, screenwriter of ‘10.000km’ and ‘Las distancias’ and codirector of the TV-series ‘Tijuana’ (Netflix), Isobel Waller-Bridge (composer of the soundtrack of ‘Fleabag’ and ‘Black Mirror’) and a masterclass in cooperation with Music Library about the use of the music in audiovisual projects. 

Other speakers of the section Behind the Scenes will be announced over the next months.

‘PRO Session’, the industry speaks

As in every edition, Serielizados Fest organizes the PRO Session, a professional day -in cooperation with SGAE- with the presence of several figures of the local, national and european audiovisual sector.

This year, a lot of renowned channels and production companies will present what’s new in this television season. 

Furthermore, and for the first time at Serielizados Fest, the professionals that will be participating at Sesión PRO (producers, channel executives and international festival responsibles) may be part of the jury of the I Pitching Forum Series of the festival. Organized in cooperation with GAC-Guionistes Associats de Catalunya- the Pitching Forum Series is a market and a meeting point between screenwritters, platforms, TV channels and producers. A committee of script analysts will select between a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 8 TV-series projects, that will take part in an exhibition session in front of a jury formed by platforms, TV channels, with several producers witnessing the event.

The project counts also on the cooperation of FAGA (Foro de Asociaciones de Guionistas Audiovisuales), Fundació SGAE and the Institut de Cultura de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona.

VI Pilots Fiction Showcase

As everyone could guess, Serielizados Fest will once again celebrate its classic Showcase (already six years old), where the best national talent is in the competition with a selection of the best pilots. The registrations are open until the 31st of July.

The finalists of the VI edition of the Fiction Pilots Showcase will be announced in the beginning of September.