The importance of being serious

When finding information on the Italian Global Series Festival, the new festival for Italian and international TV series, the first edition of which will be held in Riccione and Rimini from 21 to 28 June, it is easy to come across comparisons with Cannes or the David di Donatello, and to some extent this is inevitable: TV series festivals are relatively recent creatures and still being defined, just as the audiovisual scene as a whole is undergoing profound changes. TV series, it is worth remembering, were traditionally awarded at ceremonies dedicated to the small screen, together with the other TV genres: entertainment, news, culture, sports, children's programmes. In the United States this is still mostly the case: the Emmys, but also the Atx Television Festival in Austin, to name but one, are structured in categories including TV series but also talk shows, reality shows, daytime programmes.

In the US, in fact, 'TV series' does not even necessarily indicate fictional series: even American Idol or Survivor are TV series. Then, in the media reports, it is the TV series, as we understand them, that take up most of the space, but this reflects their greater prestige and the fact that, in US TV, fiction has always been one of the most widespread and important genres, much more so than it has ever been in European countries and especially in Italy, where it is still a minority component of the programme schedule.Festivals devoted exclusively to TV series, inspired by the film model and therefore with a curatorial and authorial perspective, full of previews, with a strong emphasis on quality and the emergence of the most interesting new releases, are a typically European phenomenon, which has been gaining ground for some fifteen years or so. What could currently be considered the most important and well-known European TV series festival, the French Series Mania, was born in 2010 and only since 2018 has been permanently installed in Lille. In some cases, there is a strong connection between film and TV series festivals: the Berlinale series, for instance, is an internal section of the Berlin Film Festival; Canneseries, on the other hand, is totally separate from the Cannes Film Festival, but has rapidly gained importance also thanks to the brand exhibited in its name. Many others are growing: the Serielizados Fest in Barcelona, the Serial Killer in Brno in the Czech Republic. All this certainly corresponds to the increase in quality and cultural consideration achieved by series, but it is also a sign of the progressive erosion of the boundaries between the different audiovisual sectors: distributors, production companies, scriptwriters, directors and actors now move indifferently between the big and the small screen, just as, on the other hand, film festivals, in the Fuori concorso, regularly host previews of TV series.Italy, as is often the case, had started early and then lost its way: the Roma Fiction Fest, inaugurated in 2007 by the Apt (Television Producers Association) and running for no less than ten editions, had intercepted the moment when series were becoming a first-class cultural product also in Europe: suffice it to think that the first original Italian productions on Sky, including Boris and Romanzo criminale, date back to those very years. After a gradual drying up of funds and a few laboured editions, the Fiction Fest had finally closed its doors in 2016. Now the Apt has become Apa (Association of Audiovisual Producers) and is chaired by Chiara Sbarigia, who was the Fiction Fest's historic director and wanted its rebirth, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Cinecittà, the Emilia Romagna Region and the municipalities of Riccione and Rimini, where the event has moved. The artistic direction is entrusted to Marco Spagnoli, film critic and, among other things, veteran of Mia (Mercato Internazionale dell'Audiovisivo), another highly successful event created by Apa.In its internal organisation, the Italian Global Series Festival well embodies the dual soul intrinsic to TV series festivals: on the one hand, celebration and promotion of the national serial industry, on the other, a preview showcase of the best world production.

There will therefore be the Maximo Awards dedicated to Italian series released between May 2024 and April 2025, divided into the now standard four categories of drama, comedy, limited series (i.e. miniseries) and TV movies - categories that, as is also the case at the Emmys, are increasingly difficult to keep separate. M - The Child of the Century and Brenner, for example, are among the limiteds, while The Bad Guy and The Law of Lidia Poët are among the dramas: the only plausible reason seems to be that the latter two have already reached their second season, the first two not yet. Or: if Vincenzo Malinconico, unsuccessful lawyer is considered a drama, then so could I delitti del BarLume, which is among comedies. One could discuss this endlessly, but in any case the selection renders well the range of recent Italian productions, from L'Amica Geniale 4 to Prisma 2, from Don Matteo to Dostoevsky and Avetrana - Qui non è Hollywood. The premiere series awards are also divided into drama, comedy and limited, but here you will find a wide and varied selection of series from all over the world, unreleased in Italy and released elsewhere less than a year ago, with the addition of a few Italian series scheduled for the next season. There are some award-winning titles at Series Mania, such as the Spanish Celeste and the English Reunion, which we will finally be able to see in our parts as well, and we hope they will find national distribution. But there will also be a lot of wonderful discoveries: from Gassal, a Turkish comedy about a lonely gravedigger, reminiscent of Six Feet Under, to Frust, a Serbian drama directed by Danis Tanović (the director of No Man's Land), Roberto Serrano's Los 39, set at the time of Christopher Columbus' expedition. There will also be some notable Out-of-Competition premieres: Too Much, the new series by Lena Dunham (Girls); the eagerly awaited fourth season of The Bear; the equally eagerly awaited third season of Squid Game, the latter presented at the same time as it airs. Much more is to be found in the extremely rich seven-day programme: the Masters of storytelling meetings with protagonists of Italian serial storytelling, the Masterclasses on screenwriting (one with Mark Gatiss and one with Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue); the numerous international and Italian guests, the Cesaroni reunion, the Italian showcases with previews of the next season (including Cuori 3 and Sandokan). In the year of David Lynch's death, however, we cannot fail to mention the evening in Rimini on 23 June dedicated to him, with the screening of the Twin Peaks pilot and a panel attended by Frederick Elmes and Peter Deming, the American director's historic directors of photography. An excellent start, in short, for the new Italian TV series festival, which was certainly much needed, and to whom we can only wish a long career.