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Barcelona’s Serielizados festival handed out its top awards on Saturday night, with Israeli creator Hagai Levi’s Etty winning best international series and the Spanish drama Killing a Bear taking best national series. Jorge and Alberto Sánchez-Cabezudo, the brothers behind La Zona, directed the winning Spanish entry. Both six-part series pushed boundaries within their respective genres.
Etty and Killing a Bear Lead the Winners
Levi, known for The Affair and Scenes From a Marriage, took a deliberately modern approach to Etty. The French-Dutch-German co-production draws on the real diaries of Dutch Jewish author Etty Hillesum. It follows the passionate 27-year-old Etty through a spiritual and emotional journey in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
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The Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers brought a fresh angle to the crime genre with Killing a Bear, known in Spanish as Matar a un oso. In the show, a bear is the victim. The story unfolds through the perspectives of multiple characters across a tight community of 262 members in an Anti-Bears chat room. The setting is Spain’s scenic high-Pyrenean Val d’Arán.
Finnish producer Roosa Toivonen, who also co-leads Tallinn TV Beats, served on the national competition jury alongside Canneseries’ Claire-Marine Pietriga and the Berlinale’s Rowan Woods. “With this series, we felt really lucky to have been invited into a world so fully realised, so distinctly Catalan but portrayed with a confidence and a muscularity that left us astonished,” Toivonen said.
Arte France Backs Both Winners
Both series carry the backing of Arte France, the European cultural broadcaster known for supporting ambitious television. Arte France played a major role in producing Levi’s historical drama. The show premiered out of competition in Venice, screened at Series Mania, and opened in French cinemas on May 6. It then launched on Arte.tv on May 16. Les Films du Poisson shepherded the project, and Studio TF1 handles international sales.
Meanwhile, Killing a Bear had its Catalan premiere at Serielizados, shortly after its world premiere at Spain’s Valladolid Film Festival. The show is a Movistar Plus Original, produced by Kubik Films, which the Sánchez-Cabezudo brothers own through Studio TF1. It will launch in Spain on December 1. The series represents another successful collaboration between Arte France and Movistar Plus, Spain’s largest pay-TV and SVOD operator.
Arte France also claimed the best screenplay award in the international competition. The French comedy Camarades, co-created and co-written by Benjamin Charbit and Dominique Baumart, took that prize. In addition, BBC’s Ann Droid impressed the international jury. Bafta-nominated Diane Morgan, known for Mandy and Cun, won best performance for her role as Linda, a second-hand robot.
National Competition Celebrates Spanish Talent
All four series selected for the national competition received recognition. Alongside Killing a Bear, the drama Segunda Temporada won best screenplay. Writer-director Miguel Ángel Blanca and co-writers Berta Prieto and Víctor Diago created the show. It brings together a washed-up ghostwriter and a fading trap artist fresh out of jail. The project developed through the Serielizados Kick talent lab and runs as a seven-episode, 30-minute drama. Barcelona-based Boogaloo Films and Canada produced it, with Paris-based Oble handling sales.
Carmen Machi, one of Spain’s most celebrated actresses and known for Aida and La Mesías, won best actress. She plays tax inspector Sara Santano in the second season of Celeste, a Movistar Plus and 100 Balas production that had its world premiere in Barcelona. The show’s creator Diego San José and director Elena Trapé previously won two Serielizados awards for Yakarta.
The HBO Max and 3Cat co-commissioned dramedy In Vitro received a Special Mention. The show offers a witty look at fertility treatments. Marc Crehuet and Alejandra Guimerà created it, with Crehuet co-writing alongside Carmen Marfá, Natalia Boadas and Serielizados co-founder Víctor Sala. The series launched simultaneously on October 19 in Spain on both HBO Max and 3Cat, drawing an 18.2% share on the Catalan public broadcaster.
The jury praised the boldness of Spanish commissioners. “Many countries could be jealous of the creative courage the Spanish commissioners have shown, as they have helped equally bold producers to greenlight shows of this caliber,” they said. The jury also noted that each of the four national competition series featured strong central female characters of different ages.
Mind the Gap Pitch Competition and Festival Highlights
The festival’s Mind the Gap pitch competition awarded its top prize of €5,500 (approximately $6,100) to the Spanish project El Observatorio. Laura Roqué, Luis Sorolla and Eloy Zamora created the show. Set in a small village in Sierra Morena, it follows a group of astrophysicists investigating mysterious flickering lights. One of them, Sara, begins to believe the lights may be her deceased father trying to reach her. The project first earned a Serielizados award at the ECAM Forum 2026 and is currently in early development, seeking a producer.
Arte France’s Alexios Kastrissianakis co-judged the Mind the Gap competition alongside Mubi’s Ben Driscoll, Movistar Plus’ Laura Escrivá, ZDF Studios’ Susanne Frank and Beta Film’s Peter Lohner. “After great deliberation we’ve decided to award new talent who need to be discovered,” Kastrissianakis said.
The jury also gave two honorable mentions to female-led series about abuse. The Finnish psychological drama Dangerous Woman, produced by Gutsy Pictures for MTV Finland and TV4 Sweden, received one mention. The Spanish drama Callback, created by sisters Joana and Mireia Vilapuig for Funicular Films and Left Tackle Films, received the other. Callback also won the €2,000 ($2,200) Konga Music Agency award.
This year’s 13th edition of Serielizados featured masterclasses with Levi, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue, a full day of the Miniput quality TV showcase, and the second edition of the Mind the Gap competition. Festival co-founder Betu Martínez Molero said the event reached 18,000 attendees across more than 60 activities, including over 30 national and international premieres. The festival runs across various Barcelona venues until October 28. After that, it moves online to the streaming platform Filmin from November 10 to 22.
