Seven premiere productions will compete for the Berlinale Series Award next month, with another world-exclusive opening screening out of competition.
The winner of the Berlinale Series Award, created in collaboration with Deadline, will be chosen by an international jury consisting of actor André Holland (The Eddie; legs and all; moonlight); International Executive Dana Stern who founded Shtisel, and high Court Company Yes Studios; and screenwriter Mette Heeno who created Apart together and snow angel.
In its ninth edition, the TV screenings of the Berlin Film Festival show a total of eight world and international premieres, including projects from India, China, Italy and Romania from Disney+ and HBO Max.
Among the directors of these screenings is Silver Bear winner Zhang Dalei, who returns to Berlin after winning his short film The day is over in 2020 and live international co-productions with German-speaking talents Leonie Benesch and Svenja Jung.
Shows include HBO Max’s Eastern European Cold War thriller Spy / Master, about a double agent caught between systems, taps into viewers’ experience of current crises; valleys Why are you trying to change me now?, recreating the “evolving urban landscapes and fickleness of human nature in China in the early 1990s”; and Stan’s Australian show Bad behaviorin which a young woman must question her subjective memories when she is confronted with a new interpretation of her past.
Several premieres have female leads. Indian series dahad (Roar), by Excel Media & Entertainment and Tiger Baby follows a young, emancipated police officer and “raises uncomfortable questions about how society treats women, different beliefs, norms and traditions while it’s Disney+.” The good mothers investigates the “long-overlooked wives and daughters of famous mafiosi characters who are working to dismantle a patriarchal network of violence, silence and oppression”.
Also on the list is the Danish comedy series mediatorA TV 2 series with Esben Smed, Ulrich Thomsen and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, while Architecture (The architect) describe a “hypergentrified future in which there are no public spaces or opportunities for social progress without sacrificing one’s physical or psychological integrity.”
The swarm (The swarm), which was selected to watch by Deadline last year, will be screened out of competition, it was announced in December.
“Future concepts – realistic and gloomy, humorous or hopeful – are a leitmotif when choosing the series for 2023,” said Julia Fidel, head of the Berlinale series. “Scenarios of a world thrown dramatically out of balance by changes in the meteorological and social climate, pleas for social change embedded in genre narratives and reinterpretations of the recent past – current productions are politically sober, committed to the present and forward-looking. “
Author: Jesse Whittock
Source: Deadline
Joseph Fearn is an entertainment and television aficionado who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a keen eye for what’s hot in the world of TV, Joseph keeps his readers informed about the latest trends and must-see shows.
