We met with Francesco Capurro, director of the Series Mania Forum (running 25 to 27 March – read our news), which is the professional sidebar of the 15th Series Mania Festival (which kicked off on Friday in Lille – article).

Cineuropa: How is this year’s edition of the Series Mania Forum shaping up? Is there anything new?
Francesco Capurro: There’s a real sense of passion from professionals: it feels like the Series Mania Forum is definitely part of the unmissable events schedule, in France and Europe but also increasingly worldwide. We’ll also have more than 20 official delegations from Taiwan, Korean, Africa, Brazil, Canada, etc. We haven’t made too many changes to the format, which works well and which goes down well, but there’s one major novelty this year: Buyers Upfront (read our article), a private event exclusively aimed at buyers who are shown extracts from ten unreleased series which we selected together with the festival’s artistic team.

Is it turning into more of an official market or is it just less informal?
The aim is to round off what’s offered by the Series Mania Forum, which started out as a project development and co-production market. That’s still part of our DNA, in fact producers are the most highly represented professional category at the Forum. But the event has grown over the years; we’re seeing increasing numbers of exhibitors and, among them, the biggest production and distribution companies in the industry (ranging from Mediawan to Beta via Globo, and StudioCanal for the first time this year). We were already presenting finished series in our Coming Next From section, which shines a light on different regions. Buyers Upfront will round off these initiatives, meaning that we can cover the entire value chain, from writing to the sale and distribution of series. This transformation was initiated several years ago, but this year - notably with the end of MIPTV in Cannes - some distributors who were in the habit of coming to us, communicated a need for a specific showcase in which to launch their series. That’s what made us want to respond to that request, by creating this specific event.

What trends are you seeing among the 406 projects hailing from 72 countries which were submitted for the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions (article)?
We were happy to note that despite the crisis and what we might be hearing about "post peak TV", we received just as many projects as normal, which is a significant number and which proves that producers are very active. Trends included series formats tending to be shorter with slightly fewer episodes per series. There are also fewer period drama projects, which are very expensive to produce, or science-fiction projects: people are moving back towards the modern-day or recent history. Thrillers are still the predominant genre, which isn’t a surprise: they work better on TV channels, hence their presence among the projects in development. Suspense is crucial to the very nature of series, because it makes viewers want to watch the next episode. But it’s also an incredibly vast genre which allows filmmakers to employ a whole range of variations and combinations. In fact, one trend in recent years is opting for female lead characters, and maybe also moving away from the figure of the investigating police officer and more towards other people who lead their own investigations potentially in parallel with the police’s.

Co-productions involving several countries seem to be multiplying in the development phase.
In a "post peak TV" context, there’s an ever-greater need to join forces and co-finance ambitious (therefore expensive) and internationally-intended projects. Co-producing also makes selling and circulating series easier. There’s also co-funding now, between traditional TV channels and platforms with successive broadcasts whose audiences weren’t in competition. It’s clear that there’s an increasing need for co-productions in the broader sense, for co-funding.

On 27 March, the Lille Dialogues will explore the subject of "post peak TV", notably from the angle of audience changes.
It’s a major issue. How do we attract younger audiences? Because the average audience for TV channels, especially linear ones, is an aging audience. When we speak to younger generations, we have to compete with other forms of media: social networks, free video platforms like YouTube, etc. We have to compete not only to capture their attention but also in terms of the advertising market. The series industry has to adapt in order to speak to new generations and to ensure these generations keep on watching high-quality series, longer formats, etc. Because, right now, there’s a tendency towards quick consumption, ever shorter formats, which aren’t always high on quality in production terms. So there are some real issues around audiences.