Projects from Oscar-winning Scottish director ( ), Philippine filmmaker Erik Matti ( ) and Austrian auteur Barbara Albert ( ) have been picked as the most promising new TV pitches at this year’s SeriesMania festival. Macdonald’s , a real-life spy thriller about the famed double agent, and Matti’s , an East-meets-West crime story about a secretive Filipino maid and a tenacious Ukrainian detective who team up, 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, which includes with Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster, and starring
Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe, Macdonald has helmed several acclaimed documentaries, including the Oscar-winning (2000), 2004’s and 2013’s . Matti’s crime thriller premiered in Venice in 2021, where it won the best
Actor honor for star John Arcilla. His other credits include 2019’s and (2016). Albert’s screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival in 1999. Her 2003 feature premiered in Locarno and her period drama screened at the
Toronto Film Festival in 2017. Beta’s Content Division, led by CCO Koby Gal Raday, will work closely with the teams behind the two projects to bring the pitches to the pilot script and packaging stage. Albert’s , a dark mystery drama about a mysterious illness striking the children of a small Eastern German town, picked up a €20,000 ($21,700) bursary as the winner of the Kirch Foundation Award, presented in collaboration with the University of Television and Film in Munich. An
Israeli project, , won this year’s SeriesMakers award, presented by SeriesMania’s Forum industry section. The show pitch, from creators Orit Fouks Rotem, Adi Goral, Batya Deil and Miri Milstein, is a dramedy about a bridal counselor who transforms an Orthodox “prayer hotline,” aimed at strengthening women’s faith, into a channel for sexual awakening for her devout community. The project will receive $22,000 in development funding to bring the idea to the small screen. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The
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