German comedy drama The Zweiflers was named best series at the seventh annual Canneseries festival that ran April 5-10 in Cannes.
The six-part series produced by Turbokultur from creator and showrunner David Hadda about a colourful Jewish family in contemporary Germany also won the prize for best music and the High School Award for Best Series voted upon by local students.
Led by an ensemble cast, the series centres on the inheritance of a family delicatessen as the past and future clash among several generations of Zweiflers.
Hadda told Screen of the win, “It was really always my dream to bring the series to Cannes. The show needs to have an international dimension in order to draw attention to this important, ambivalent story of what it means to be Jewish in Germany after World World Two.”
Hadda added, “To tell this story and bring it to audiences around the world, there is no better place than Cannes to do that. What a gift.”
The prize for best screenplay went to Norwegian series Dumbsday from NRK about a group of survivors trying to save the planet from a virus attacking people’s brains that causes intelligence to drop to dangerous levels.
Best Performance went to Aina Clotet in Spanish-Swedish-German-Finnish co-production This is Not Sweden, about a couple who move to an idyllic mountain neighbourhood with their children when tragedy strikes the community.
A Special Acting prize was awarded to the cast of Serbia-Bulgaria co-production Operation Sabre, about the assassination of the Serbian prime minister that plunges the country into chaos, as told by different characters.
The prizes were voted upon by a jury presided over by Danish actress Sofie Gråbøl joined by screenwriter, director and producer Olivier Abbou, composer Amine Bouhafa, and actresses Alix Poisson, Macarena Garcia and Alice Braga.
DJ Mehdi: Made In France was named Best Documentary Series and Argentinian series Rather Burn took the prize for Best Short Form series. Finnish series Money Shot rounded out the awards with the Student Award for Best Short Form Series.
The six-day Riviera-set series showcase drew large crowds and media attention for its starry line-up of world premieres of buzzy international titles including Canal+ comedy Terminal, Disney+’s Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, and Netflix local language comedy Fiasco for its seventh edition running April 3-10.
The festival wrapped with the world premiere of Apple TV+’s Franklin, produced by ITV Studios America with Apple Studios, starring Michael Douglas as the titular US founding father in a story about his time on a mission to France in 1776.
Douglas, also an executive producer on the eight-episode limited series, joined the series ensemble cast including Ludivine Sagnier, Thibault de Montalambert, Noah Jupe and Assaad Bouab on the festival’s signature pink carpet for the premiere in Cannes’ Lumiere Theatre in the Palais des Festivals.
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