Watch the shows lined up for eastern Europe’s first TV festival

Based in the Czech city of Brno, Serial Killer already has its eye on becoming central and eastern Europe’s answer some of the biggest festivals around.

Launching for the first time in 2018, the festival is designed to promote and nurture the region’s growing industry of television drama: including an ever-growing number of web series.

The trailer for Romania’s Umbre II

The festival’s inaugural edition will be showing series from Poland, Croatia, Romania, Estonia, Russia and Czechia, including Croatia’s espionage-themed miniseries Guardian of the Castle, Polish detective series Ultraviolet, Romanian neo-noir comedy Shadows II, and Estonian series The Bank, evoking the spirit of the “wild nineties”.

“We want to bring high-quality content to people in cooperation with the world’s top TV and online production [companies],” festival organisers say. “We want to motivate artists to create more and more production and show them that new stories and approaches will be appreciated properly. We want to be central and eastern Europe’s answer to Sundance.”

The trailer for Estonia’s The Bank

As well as talks delving deeper into TV financing, development and international collaborations, there will also be special programmes for German and Danish productions, and a smattering of international shows.

The Calvert Journal rounded up some of the best trailers for 2018.

The trailer for Romanian web series Casting

Serial Killer will be taking place in Brno between 2 May — 5 May. For more information, visit the festival website here.