Nuclear warship murder thriller ‘R91,’ Kyrgyz action drama ‘Red Pants’ and Latin dancing dramedy ‘Chacachá!’ won big Tuesday night at France’s Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival, scooping the prizes offered by its three biggest industry events, the Series Mania Forum’s Buyers Upfront and Co-Pro Pitching Sessions and SeriesMakers.
All suggest a broader audience ambition while broadly building on the three genres that are the favorites of global internet users, Ampere Analysis suggested at Series Mania on Tuesday: Crime and thrillers, comedy and action and adventure.
‘R91’
An ambitious high-concept thriller set and now shooting on France’s nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, “R91” kicks off with a female crew member being found dead just hours after departure.
As the killer strikes again, the series evolves from murder investigation to espionage thriller to full-scale military crisis,” Ramy Nahas, SND, director of international distribution noted just before the Buyers Upfront.
Series marks the first-ever co-acquisition between Amazon Prime Video France and leading free-to-air channel M6. Created by Henri Debeurme (“Marianne, Missions”) and Mathilde Arnaud, “R91” is directed by Julien Despaux (“Black Spot,” “Paris Police 1900”). SND announced its high-profile cast just before the Buyers Upfront led by Elodie Yung (“Marvel’s Daredevil,” “The Cleaning Lady,” “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”) and Alban Lenoir, star of Netflix global hit franchise “Lost Bullet.”
“The Charles de Gaulle is the most powerful warship in the French arsenal, and a floating city operating by its own laws, hierarchies and power dynamics,” said Debeurme. “It is the perfect arena for an entertaining story about trust, legitimacy and the price of command.”
‘Red Pants’
Receiving a €50,000 ($58,000) prize, “Red Pants”, from Kyrgyzstan, is set in late 1970s Soviet Kyrgyzstan, where Aisha, a military officer’s daughter, forms the ‘Red Pants’ first female criminal gang, made up of teens, to avenge her father’s death and challenge the oppressive regime.
Based on true events, “‘Red Pants,’ created by Kyrgyz voices, reveals a rarely explored chapter of Soviet Central Asia while speaking to a universal struggle for dignity, agency and survival. The project stands out for its emotional rawness and its fearless young female protagonists,” co-producer Pavel Feldman told Variety.
“I was born in Issyk-Kul, the region where the events of this project unfold. What matters to me in this story isn’t just the crime plot: it’s the deeper exploration of power, identity and female agency within a rigid, patriarchal and controlling system,” said creator Tilek Cherikov.
“The title comes from an awkward moment when their leader’s jeans were stained with menstrual blood,” he added. “The girls transformed this into an act of solidarity by dyeing their own pants red, turning it into a symbol of strength, unity and womanhood without shame.”
‘Chachachá!’
An eight-part dramedic half hour, “Chachachá!” follows a Gen X woman whose sky-high blood pressure finally brings home to to her how out of touch with herself she has become. “She turns to Latin dancing – not for fun, but for survival – igniting chaos with her family,” the synopsis runs.
Behind the Apple TV, AmazonPrime and HBOMax-streamed “Ariel Back to Buenos Aires” Alison Fairweather Murray teams with Jennifer Weiss, producer of movies by Sarah Polley (“Away From Her”), Brian de Palma (“Redacted”), Atom Egoyan (Adoration”) and most lately Molly McGlynn (“Fitting In”).
“‘Chachachá’ won us over with its light‑hearted, authentic, and sincere tone. It tackles important universal themes of society with humor. We believe this is exactly the kind of story international audiences need right now,” said Ferdinand Dohna, head of content & co-production at Beta, which partners on SeriesMakers with the Series Mania Institute.
(L-R) Alison Fairweather Murray, Jennifer Weiss
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