EXCLUSIVE: Seriencamp 2026 will supply the trade options and never a “catastrophe”, stated the creative director of Germany’s largest tv pageant as he unveiled the total line-up.
The Cologne pageant has simply accomplished its program and conferences with Paramount+’s Halo Showrunner Steven Kane and veteran Hollywood agent Alan Greenspan be a part of the lineup.
Creative director Gerhard Maier is busy placing the ending touches on this 12 months’s version of Seriencamp and Maier is pondering critically about inventive methods through which producers can navigate their approach by way of these tough occasions.
He additionally oversees a variety of packages which incorporates the Wallander reboot, the world premiere of ARD Westend Woman starring Golden Globe nominee Helena Zengel and large upcoming reveals for US streamers like Disney+ Alice and Steve and Prime Video Key set.
“Numerous the pillars that you just construct your small business and your inventive fashions on appear to be in query proper now, so for us it is about how can we take these trajectories and put them right into a program that is not catastrophic,” Maier instructed Deadline. “We do not need to say, ‘The whole lot goes to hell,’ however relatively we are able to supply options, inspiration, concepts that producers, writers and decision-makers have to have on their map when planning for the following 5 years. »
Maier has been busy eager about new alternatives, together with microdrama, gaming mental property, and AI.
Within the first case, he needs to additional discover a dynamic trade born in Asia and brought over by Hollywood. In Germany, he says, “there’s lots of confusion about what a microdrama is.” “I’ve solely spoken with 4 freelancers who I believe have produced microdramas and are conscious of what it means to be data-driven and rooted in economies of scale,” he added. “It solely works for those who do 25 [microdramas] a 12 months relatively than a one-off venture.
A particular microdrama will characteristic Gregor Sauter (Pink Pony), media strategist Bo Zhang (Bolytics), author Will Buckingham, producer Felix Mann (WennDann Movie), Brooklyn Cafe creator Nitay Dagan and showrunner Lukas Lankisch (VEAM), all study vertical video “from a variety of strategic, inventive and financial views,” in accordance with the pageant.
Maier needs to attach the pondering round microdrama and mental property and “talk about how producers can exploit mental property in fascinating methods.”
With that in thoughts, American showrunner Kane is a large success story. He oversaw the profitable adaptation of Halo online game for Paramount+ and its presentation on “the challenges of adapting video games from a collection perspective” comes with a gaming IP that’s extra standard than ever. Greenspan, who lately launched Bridge MP, a administration and manufacturing firm based mostly in Munich and London, will reply questions on “the event and packaging of natural co-productions within the collection sector.”
“Radically disrupted” constructions
Unsurprisingly for any fashionable TV pageant, Seriencamp will sort out AI head-on with, for the primary time, a devoted Plot Subsequent strand together with a session with Netflix. The Marquise showrunner Pandora de Cunha Telles and a dialogue on what AI-supported work seems like within the German telenovela writers’ room Pink roses.
Whereas acknowledging that he’s “very, very vital of sure sorts of AI,” Maier stated Seriencamp would as soon as once more take a hands-on strategy. “We need to reply questions on using AI-based instruments and the way this modifications manufacturing processes,” he added. “The hierarchical construction of cinema is being radically disrupted. We need to discuss the place it’s used, through which areas it must be mentioned and what’s already taking place in order that we are able to develop a framework for political choices.”
Seriencamp is in fact above all of the reveals. ZDF The faults is the winner of the competitors and the staff obtained star-studded likes Wallander And Daughter of the Westend, which Maier says come from creatives who’re “common company” at Seriencamp.
Streamer reveals like Alice and Steve and the brand new German model of Prime Video from Key Set faucet into tales about relationships, whereas there are some splashy co-pros within the Work in Progress part within the type of the Gibbons brothers The Reluctant Vampire and that of Bryan Elsley Recommendation, each produced by the BBC and ZDF. Elsley will probably be on the town to speak in regards to the pageant.
Whereas world premieres are in fact essential, Maier stated he needs the programming to be “constant.” He due to this fact highlighted Seriencamp’s dedication to feminine voices, which is able to see reveals created by girls broadcast in international locations from Bangladesh to Palestine.
Probably the most influential feminine voices within the German trade of this era is HBO Max Germany boss Anke Greifeneder, and she or he will probably be in Cologne to obtain the Deadline TV Disruptor Award.
Maier stated the extremely regarded trade vet had given the inexperienced gentle to “a few of the bravest and boldest collection” from Germany, which he stated are “perhaps missing a bit” for the time being. “She was one among our first company at Seriencamp again when unique German TV reveals weren’t as broadly broadcast and she or he had a really clear imaginative and prescient of what she needed to do,” Maier celebrated.
Seriencamp takes place from June 9 to 11.