The ninth edition of Serial Killer, the International Festival of TV and Web Series, is primed to unspool in the eastern Czech city of Brno from 23-28 September 2026. The event will open and close with two Czech series: respectively, Cell Block B and All for My Son.

The festival includes two competitive juried sections, Primetime Killer – showcasing the best TV from Central and Eastern Europe – and Czech Killer, a new section dedicated exclusively to Czech series. Serial Killer screens the first two episodes of each work so that audiences can get a first taste.

Five shows will compete for the top prize in the Primetime Killer category. Shattered Bonds (Bulgaria), directed by Viktor Chouchkov, is a novel adaptation about dysfunctional families as seen through a dark lens. Proud (Poland), directed by Karol Klementewicz, the acclaimed series that premiered on HBO Max in June, follows a hedonistic twenty-something gay model who becomes a father to his late sister’s daughter. The stylish drama Variola Vera (Poland), directed by Kuba Czekaj, is inspired by the events of a smallpox epidemic in Wrocław in the 1960s.

The Czech Killer category includes the aforementioned festival closer All for My Son, directed by Michal Samir; the crime-drama Dare, also directed by Samir; and Record(wo)man, directed by Dan Wlodarczyk, a series set to premiere in 2027 telling the story of Zdeněk Koubek, an intersex athlete born in the 1910s. Two series are cross-listed across both the Primetime and the Czech Killer strands: the aforementioned dark comedy Cell Block B, directed by Jan Prušinovský; and the Czech series Friend, directed by Petr Pylypčuk (premiering in 2027), which follows a school-age student who forms an uncomfortably close bond with a youth group leader, inspired by a true case.

The International Panorama section aims to spotlight European TV writ large, bringing six series to the table from as many different countries. Among them are the Helsinki-set Finnish young-adult comedy Atlantis Pasila by Ulla Heikkilä; the French dramedy Clean by Cathy Verney, about a group of rebellious women; the hit Swedish legal drama Burden of Justice by Lisa Linnertorp; the UK docudrama Dirty Business by Joseph Bullman; the Norwegian small-town hospital drama Still Breathing by Eirik Svensson; and the Spanish political thriller The Anatomy of a Moment by Alberto Rodríguez.

The national strands Focus: Iceland and Focus: Netherlands spotlight three series from each country. From Iceland comes the 2025 series Reykjavik Fusion, described as an Icelandic crime-thriller spin on The Bear; the 2020 existential comedy The Funeral; and the 2023 midlife crisis drama As Long as We Live. For the Netherlands, the festival will screen Bennie (2025), about a young man with Down syndrome; The Crash (2022), a much-lauded, based-on-a-true-story miniseries about a cargo plane that fell onto two residential high-rises in Amsterdam in 1992; and Messed Up (2024), a comedy à la Fleabag or Girls.

The Trending: Family section showcases a variety of shows about family, including series from the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Spain and Denmark. A Best of Web Series event will also be presented by French scriptwriter and consultant Joël Bassaget on the trends and state of the web series format in 2026.

During the Serial Killer TV Days conference and industry programme, the Theatre on Orlí Street (Divadlo na Orlí) will host a variety of discussions, case studies, master classes and project showcases. Serial Killer will also be the site of the MIDPOINT Series Launch: Essentials workshop, where promising drama projects in development will be pitched and presented within the framework of TV Days.

The full programme for this year’s edition of Serial Killer can be found here.