Chess thriller ‘Rematch’ awarded grand prize at 2024 Series Mania

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Rematch

Source: ©Drowster

Trine Dyrholm and Christian Cooke in ‘Rematch’

Man vs. machine chess thriller Rematch was awarded the International Competition grand prize at the 2024 Series Mania festival on Friday night (March 22) in Lille, France.

Inspired by the true story of the historic confrontation between chess master Garry Kasparov and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue, the AI-themed story created by Yan England, André Gulluni and Bruno Nahon is produced by Unité, Arte France, Federation Studios and Proton and stars Christian Cooke. Federation Studios handles international sales.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The international competition jury, presided by The OA creator Zal Batmanglij, also gave awards to the stars of two family-focused dramas: Annette Bening for best actress in new Peacock series Apples Never Fall, and Kamel El Basha for his performance in House Of Gods from Matchbox pictures for Australia’s ABC TV. NBC Universal Global TV distribution is handling global sales for both titles.

Bening was not in Lille to accept the award, but juror actress Berenice Bejo read a note from her calling the series “a labour of love” and saying she was “deeply honoured” for the prize.

Thomas Wendrich took the prize for best writing for German series Herrhausen – The Banker And The Bomb, a political thriller about the dangerous rise of a visionary banker in the 1980s when Germany was divided between East and West, sold by Fremantle and broadcast by ARD.

The international panorama jury, presided by American writer Douglas Kennedy, gave its top prize to Norwegian series Dates In Real Life (NRK), a coming-of-age story about an introverted woman who must leave the virtual world for real life to find love.

It also gave awards to Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for Spanish series La Mesias (Movistar Plus+, HBO Max Latam) for best directing, Robyn Malcolm for her role in Australian-New Zealand series After The Party (ABC), and Karlis Arnolds Avots for Best actor for Latvian series Soviet Jeans (GO3).

Soviet Jeans also earned the festival’s coveted audience award voted on at the end of each screening by spectators.

Arte series Machine, sold by Mediawan Rights, won the French competition for best series. Created by Thomas Bidegain, director of recent feature Suddenly, and Fred Givrois of 15 Minutes Of War, the action series follows a mysterious kung fu heroine and a former drug addict converted to Marxism who join forces to lead a workers’ revolt in a French factory.

Strong showing

The event boasted record numbers in its seventh year in the northern city of Lille with more than 98,000 spectators attending representing 15% increase on last year’s figures.

The festival opened on March 15 with Netflix’s 3 Body Problem and its parallel professional Forum ran March 19-21 with more than 4,200 professionals from 72 countries congregating at what was a bustling venue at the Lille Grand Palais.

Series Mania’s founder and general director Laurence Herszberg took to the stage ahead of the ceremony to highlight the “more than 100,000 people on average coming to premieres for the competition titles. When we first started, you were just 300 each night”.

The eight-day event was heavy on talent from near and far including Patricia Arquette, Jeremy Irons, Kelly Rutherford, Michael Chiklis, Peter Mullan, and local stars like international competition juror Berenice Bejo, famed rapper and actor JoeyStarr, and actress Audrey Fleurot.

Series Mania organisers announced that the 2025 event dates will be March 21-28 for the festival and March 25-27 for the Forum.