MADRID — Never has a TV Festival re-launched in such extraordinary circumstances, or using such novel means., one of Europe’s two or three most reputed TV events, confirmed on March 11 that it was canceling 2020’s March 20-28 edition, amid inescapable fears of COVID-19 contagion.
Six days later, it announced it was launching a Digital Forum, to feature a Buyers Showcase with, two days out from its lift-off, a sizable number of the series scheduled to world premiere in cinemas at Lille, and video presentations, which would before have been made onstage, of its major industry showcases, led by the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions of series projects.
Increasingly, ambitious series frame intimate character arcs in highly specific scenarios around the world, whether the Basque Country’s pained struggle for reconciliation , the farcical racketeering of Latin America’s soccer politics , or Kurdish women soldiers battling ISIS in the Syrian desert . “Quality journalism describes very well what’s happening in the world, but preaches to the converted, Series can reach much more people,” argues Series Mania director Laurence Herszberg.