"Love your protagonists

Another genuine Hamburg project is "Große Freiheit" by the Hamburg production company Red Balloon. Executive Producer Dorothe Beinemeier travelled to Hamburg together with her Swedish Script Writer and Director Maria von Heland. The series is set in Hamburg in the 1960s and focuses on a fictitious, very young UK band - a story that inevitably brings to mind the Hamburg era of the Beatles, but has nothing to do with the mushroom heads. In the session, it became clear what was important to the script doctors: "What exactly is the story in your series? Where are the turning points in the plot? And what do you think is the motivation of the main characters?" asked Maggie Boden, who has already worked on series such as "The Man in The High Castle" and "Medici: The Magnificent" with her company Big Light Productions and knows what she is talking about. Script doctor John Yorke also worked intensively with the participants on the dramaturgy and content: "There is a lot of fascinating material, but sometimes it is still too complicated. The focus has to be on the protagonists, you have to really love them, that's what we're working on."

Letterbox Filmproduktion takes us into the world of legends with "Kriemhild - The Nibelungs", in which the Nibelung saga is told from a female perspective. "The Nibelungs have fascinated me since I was a child. When I read it to my son recently, I was so fascinated by Kriemhild again because I realised that she is a modern heroine and stands for so many women today with their difficulties and needs. Reading it aloud was the starting signal for me to finally tell this brilliant story from the women's point of view. I wrote the basic outline in just under two weeks in January 2018, submitted it to Hessenfilm, forgot about it for a while and then received the full funding amount in April," reveals Script Writer Kathrin Feistl. A small feat that was very well received during the session and received a lot of encouragement. "We see the Series Lab as a test lab to get feedback at a very early stage," says Segment Producer Torsten Götz from Letterbox.

The big winner of the Series Lab may come from Hamburg, but it is set somewhere else entirely: back in 2012, the two HMS graduates Stefan Gieren and Max Zähle received an Oscar nomination for their short film "Raju". Now the duo want to tell the story of a married couple who want to adopt a child in India and come across a child trafficking ring again in series format - and were honoured for their concept with the NDR Albatross, which was awarded at the end of the Lab and is endowed with 7,500 euros. "We currently have six 60-minute episodes in mind. Max and I realised back when we were researching our short film that there was much more to the story," says Executive Producer and Script Writer Stefan Gieren, who was last seen in the cinema with "Whatever Happens Next". "The emotional part of the story should remain an important aspect, but we want to give more space to human trafficking and various environmental aspects in the mini-series," adds Director and Script Writer Max Zähle, whose cinema debut "Schrotten" screened at the 2016 Max Ophüls Preis film festival and immediately won the audience award.

But even the best series with the strongest storytelling is of little use if there is no money to produce it. And so a speed dating event was organised as part of the Series Lab, in which 22 potential financiers took part. These included Sky Deutschland, NDR and ZDF enterprises. "The willingness of European financiers to take part in the Lab shows that there is a lively series landscape beyond the major platforms in which co-productions are financed by broadcasters, global distributors and Fundings," says Christiane Siemen.

So is this where the European series of tomorrow are being created? Quite possibly, because there is certainly plenty of potential! We are curious to see what material will make it onto television in the next few years.