Series Mania 2025 Preview: History Repeats, Families Argue, and a Pop Star Gets Audited

This year's edition of Series Mania offers a curated selection of series that reflect shifting dynamics in geopolitics and personal lives. With 48 selections, including 26 world premieres and 12 international debuts, the festival presents a window into how creators are processing the present by revisiting the past, and questioning societal norms.

The festival opens with Carême, a French-language drama about the world’s first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême. Created for Apple TV+ and directed by Martin Bourboulon (The Three Musketeers), the series follows Carême’s journey from a struggling pastry apprentice to a figure of culinary prestige, whose rise is entwined with the political intrigues of early 19th-century France.

The festival closes with the latest season of High Intellectual Potential (HPI), a fan-favorite French detective series, bringing its unconventional protagonist, Morgane Alvaro, back to Lille, the city where her story began.

This year’s line-up features a strong historical and geopolitical focus, with stories that look back at conflicts and power struggles that continue to shape the present. The German, a co-production between Israel and the United States, revisits the hunt for Nazi criminals in the 1970s, unraveling a web of justice and retribution. A Life’s Worth, a Swedish-French miniseries, takes a different approach, following the experiences of UN peacekeepers in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

More recent political events take center stage in The Deal, which dissects the 2015 Iran nuclear negotiations, and Kabul, which dramatizes the frantic withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan in 2021. Meanwhile, Mussolini: Son of the Century traces the rise of the Italian dictator through a mix of dramatization and archival footage, drawing inevitable parallels to contemporary political figures.

Alongside stories of diplomacy and war, a number of series examine modern crises within the microcosm of family life. Spain’s Querer tackles questions of consent and marital power structures, while Denmark’s Generations explores the long shadow of repressed trauma across multiple generations.

From the U.S., Hal & Harper offers an intimate portrait of a single father navigating the delicate balance between his own struggles and his children’s needs. Other series take a more unexpected approach. The Rose Family, a darkly comedic entry from France, follows a seemingly ordinary household, except for one detail: they are cannibals.

The programme also includes a new exploration of masculinity, with stories that challenge traditional ideas of strength and identity. The British series What It Feels Like for a Girl follows a young man grappling with gender identity, while Quebec’s T-Rex takes a sharp, introspective look at shifting desires and self-perception. Fighter, a Norwegian documentary, follows the life of an MMA fighter who is forced to rebuild his identity after becoming quadriplegic.

But the selection does not omit female stories. Celeste introduces a Spanish tax inspector on the verge of retirement who takes on one final challenge: bringing down Mexico’s biggest pop star. In The Danish Woman, a former secret agent applies her skills closer to home, seeking justice within her own apartment building. Meanwhile, Empathy, a psychological drama from Quebec, follows a young psychiatrist working in a prison hospital, facing the ethical and emotional challenges of her profession.

Other female-led stories tackle matters of faith and public scrutiny. Le Sens des Choses, adapted from a novel by Delphine Horvilleur, follows a young liberal rabbi as she confronts tradition, doubt, and belief. Requiem for Selina turns the lens on a once-infamous Norwegian blogger, whose early 2000s internet fame was built on self-inflicted hatred. Now, years later, she forces audiences to reconsider their own complicity in the culture of online judgment.

Series Mania 2025’s scope extends beyond its competitive categories, offering a range of perspectives through its International Panorama section. Sweden and France collaborate once again in A Life’s Worth, while Iran’s At the End of the Night presents a gripping social drama. South Korea’s Family Matters explores the shifting nature of kinship, while Raul Seixas: Let Me Sing from Brazil pays tribute to one of the country’s most iconic musicians.

The festival also hosts a selection of special screenings, including Ghosts: Fantômes en Héritage, a supernatural-tinged French dramedy, and Menace Imminente, a taut political thriller. The long-running Franco-German series Parlement returns with a fourth season, continuing its satirical dive into European bureaucracy.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Empathy – Guillaume Lonergan, Canada, World premiere
Generations – Denmark, World premiere
Hal & Harper – Cooper Raiff, USA, International premiere
Kabul – Olga Chajdas, France/Germany/Italy/Belgium/Greece, World premiere
Long Bright River – USA, French premiere
Mussolini: Son of the Century – Italy/France, French premiere
Querer – Spain, International premiere
The Deal – Jean-Stéphane Bron & Alice Winocour, Switzerland/France/Luxembourg/Belgium, World premiere
The German –  Assaf Gil, Israel/USA, World premiere

FRENCH COMPETITION

37 Secondes – Anne Landois & Sophie Kovess-Brun, France, World premiere
Anaon – David Hourrègue, France, World premiere
Clean – Cathy Verney, France, World premiere
La Famille Rose – Tigran Rosine, France, World premiere
Le Sens des Choses – France, World premiere
Intraçables – Louis Farge, Switzerland/France, World premiere

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA

A Life’s Worth – Sweden/France, World premiere
At the End of the Night – Iran, International premiere
Celeste – Diego San Jose, Spain, International premiere
Family Matters – South Korea, European premiere
Putain – Belgium, International premiere
Raul Seixas: Let Me Sing – Paulo Morelli & Pedro Morelli, Brazil, World premiere
Requiem for Selina – Norway, International premiere
Reunion – William Mager, United Kingdom, World premiere
The Danish Woman – Benedikt Erlingsson, Iceland/France, World premiere
What It Feels Like for a Girl – United Kingdom, International premiere

Series Mania takes place across Lille and the Hauts-de-France region from March 21 to 28, 2025.