Soo Hugh, who showran Apple TV+’s “Pachinko,” “House of Cards” showrunner Beau Willimon and Bad Wolf producer and ex-BBC top exec Jane Tranter will speak at the inaugural edition of Canneseries Industry, which unspools April 25-27.
Announced Tuesday, the schedule for Canneseries Industry also confirms its scale, makeup and ambitions as an extension of Canneseries’ existing Writers Club, which has been running for six years, and Producers Club, launched in 2022, which serve as networking and discussion hubs rather than any attempt to create a market in Cannes to fill the breach left by the demise of MipTV.
The Producers Club will host 70-75 producers, Canneseries announced Tuesday. The Writers Club currently counts 19 international screenwriters and 22 French scribes.
New Composers and Casting Clubs have been added this year while as Broadcasters Conclave will see fiction directors from European public and private broadcasters thrash out in closed-door exchange the burning challenges of today.
Soo Hugh, also co-showrunner of AMC’s Ridley Scott produced “The Terror,” will feature in a Meet With session on April 25.
Present on several panels as well as the subject of the first April 25 Meet With session in Canneseries Industry’s conference strand, Willimon will be joined on April 26 by Rosalie Cimino, who heads up Anonymous Federation, and Marie Roussin, who created and showran “Voltaire High,” to talk on the issue of Merging New Responsibilities.
Also a former powerful BBC controller of fiction, Tranter will be interviewed on April 26 as her production house Bad Wolf (“His Dark Materials,” “Doctor Who”) celebrates its 1oth anniversary.
Near day and date to the launch of “The Bureau,” which has now seen a U.S. remake, Paramount+ with Showtime’s “The Agency” starring Michael Fassbender, its creator Eric Rochant, one of France’s true-blue showrunners, will talk on April 27 in another Meet With session.
All the speakers will be able to talk about the hugely evolving priorities in a TV industry which has achieved some kind of post-Peak TV market stability but in other ways, given the impact of AI, is still in upheaval.
Taking place in the traditionally relaxed Canneseries, where attending execs are not under the constraints of back-to-back half hour meetings, Canneseries looks like a priceless opportunity for U.S. execs, looking to bring European money to the table, to meet with reps of European TV networks whose budgets have edged down in the past few years rather than plunging dramatically as often in the U.S.
Networks currently confirmed at Canneseries’ Broadcasters Conclave include Norway’s NRK and TV2, Finland’s YLE, Belgium’s Streamz and Germany’s ZDF, France’s France Télévisions Canal+, Switzerland’s RTS and Israel’s HOT.
Confirmed producers take in David W. Zucker (“The Good Wife”), Clelia Mountford (Sunburnt Penguin, formerly Merman Productions, behind “Bad Sisters”), Xavier Marchand (Moonlight Productions, “A Gentleman in Moscow,” “Nautilus”), Simon Cornwell (“The Night Manager,” “Little Drummer Girl”), Lorenzo Gangarossa (“Notre Dame on Fire,” “Conclave”), Alex Boden (“Tokyo Vice,” “Cloud Atlas”), Sharon Hughff at Scott Free Productions, formerly at Left Bank) and Amelie von Kienlin (Amusement Park, “Munich Games”).
Canneseries looks set to reflect the sometimes extraordinary European landscape where small countries punch far above their weight. Finland has some seven shows in different sections, Flemish streaming service Streamz alone has five including two in competition and two more out of competition rubbing shoulders with “The Walking Dead: Dead City” and J.J. Abrams’ “Duster.”
One star of Belgium’s TV scene, Malin-Sarah Gozin whose 2010 series “Clan” she helped adapt into Apple TV+’s “Bad Sisters” will drill down on “Dead End,” sure to prove a talking point at Canneseries where it plays in main competition featuring a man with the singular talent of being able to see a person’s last moments tasting what they have contacted. With a killer on the loose he is used to chomp down on a victim’s corpse to aid the police with their investigations.
