Jisoo, Adam Scott, Buzz Title, Male Anger

CANNES, France — When Cannes’ MipTV disappeared in 2025, some experts wondered whether the Cannes series, which runs parallel to MipTV, could continue as a standalone event. A year later, the Cannes series delivered a deluxe edition that brought together “A-list” pop culture icons K-pop star Jisoo, Severance star Adam Scott and “The White Lotus” producer David Barnado, “Fargo” and “Alien: Earth” and original Euphoria creator Ron Leshem.

There were also significant world premieres and TV festival highlights, from opener “Half Man” to closer “California Avenue,” AMC+/Shudder’s “The Terror: Devil in Silver,” Scott Free to Apple TV+’s “Star City” and Canal+’s “Paris 1910.”

How the Cannes series has achieved this says a lot about the appeal of screening at Cannes and one of the world’s most iconic cinemas, the 2,300-seat Grand Théâtre Lumière. Screening Prime Video’s explosive hard-boiled detective thriller “The Snake Killer” was “one of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had,” “Game of Thrones” star Pirou Asbaek told Variety this week. In episode 1 of Star City, the shot to the head heard at the Lumière theater as if the victim had been shot gives a sense of the shocking brutality of the Soviet system.

But the Canner series is also about artistic director Alvin Lewis’ powers of persuasion and relationships, and how the industry is unfolding post-coronavirus. Held at Cannes’ legendary Palais des Festivals from April 23rd to 28th, this year’s 9th edition of 10 Points:

She came, she was seen, the fandom went bananas

In terms of fan reaction, there was no bigger star at the Cannes series than Jisoo, a member of the girl band Blackpink and a K-pop icon. “She hardly ever appears in public,” raved one fan at Cannes. Jisoo’s acceptance speech at the opening ceremony of the Cannes series was interrupted so many times by fans shouting her name that she couldn’t believe they were lucky enough to be in the same theater. Jisoo smiled back, half hiding her smile with her hands. She said in a short press conference that since she chose “The Rising Star of Madame Figaro”, it would encourage her to try out different movie roles. Jisoo became the first Kpop megastar at the Cannes series. This is certainly not the last as there are more movies and series coming.

“Disconnection” and Adam Scott: A state of obsession

Adam Scott almost edged out Jisoo in response to the fandom. Humble, polite, thoughtful, and sometimes very funny, the Cannes series charmer explained that he achieved fame through a combination of chance, good luck, and tenacious perseverance when accepting the Canal Plus Icon Award, explaining to his wife Naomi, “This is 75 percent yours,” he told her. He also said that Severance “helped me wrap my head around things that are woven into the fabric of pop culture.” Just how big this series has become was made clear at the junket, where one of the local journalists almost hysterically begged Scott to tell him how Season 3 would play out and what it meant. Once the series achieves obsession status, it actually promises to be big.

Richard Gadd: “Massive”

The Cannes audience that packed the festival’s opening ceremony, where Gadd won the Convenience Commitment Award, had a different reaction. “He’s huge!” one audience member commented, speaking not of Gadd’s fame but of his muscular character, which he compared to the almost tramp-like figure who attended the Cannes series. He’s now a pretty big name, even in the opinion of critics. For some journalists attending the Cannes series, “Half Man,” which bowed on the opening night of the Cannes series on April 23, just hours after its US HBO release, was more humbling than any other title in the series. Variety magazine is also one of its fans, calling “Halfman” “charming and profound.”

‘Alice and Steve’: Cannes series’ biggest winner

The first series with “Sex Education” writer-director Sophie Goodhart on board as a full creator, the Disney+ global release “Alice and Steve” swept the 2026 Cannes awards, taking home the Best Series award from the festival jury led by Isabelle Coixet, as well as the Special Interpretation Award and the Student Award for Best Series, a sign of its appeal to the younger demos. It also proved to be a real and heated conversation, in the best sense of the word, about whether Steve, a man in his 50s, had any business going on a date with his lifelong best friend, Alice’s daughter Izzy, 26, after the film festival screening. “I love comedy that makes you squirm a little bit,” Goodhart told Variety. She added that her aim with the series was to “allow people to come away from the show in a less judgmental way.”

Cannes Series Industry Powerful Masterclass

In the lead-up to another iconic show of the era, producer David Barnard hit Cannes to explain why he and Mike White chose France to film Season 4 of The White Lotus. One of the factors is a “classic” encounter with a French waiter that unravels the themes of the series. Noah Hawley, creator of the TV series “Fargo,” “Legion,” and “Alien: Earth,” explained how his TV remake captured the essence of the movie that evoked the emotions he felt when he first saw it. Ron Leshem, who created the original Israeli “Euphoria,” told the audience about his extraordinary life and career journey, and how the U.S. version of “Euphoria” ended up airing on HBO. (Many thanks to Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi, and of course Sam Levinson). Leshem explained that when he was younger, he would write down all the advice he heard in lectures and conferences from people like J.J. Abrams and Natalie Portman. Access to such speakers at the Cannes series will also be invaluable.

But how did the Cannes series access such speakers?

Variety published an interview with Alvin Lewis, the artistic director of the Cannes series, in which he explained how he built relationships. “At the same time, the broader picture is changing: less domestic production and more interest in internationalization,” Lewis said. “Streaming services’ current prioritization of austerity and cost-cutting is a window of opportunity for partnerships that we’re definitely looking at, both in Asia, Europe and the Americas,” agreed Scott Free producer David W. Zucker of “The Terror: The Silver Devil” at Cannes. “There are many reasons why today must be a golden age for global drama,” Leshem enthused at Cannes, whose next series “Paranoia” is indeed set in Brazil.

Pivot to IP

If the industry is pivoting in an international direction, it is also pivoting toward intellectual property. “I’ve never seen a time when things were less certain,” Zucker told Variety at the Cannes series. He added: “Business has become like a roulette game where you can’t predict what will sell or what will get the green light.” “What’s definitely changing on the television side of the industry is that the IP base is now much larger versus the original pitch,” he added. By this year’s Cannes Series, there will be a broader divestment into IP. The biggest series “Halfman” is the original. But “The Devil in Silver,” created by Scott Free for AMC+ and Shudder, was inspired by Victor LaValle’s novel, which was a Washington Post and New York Times Best Book of 2012. Alternative history ‘Star City’ is another big world premiere, a spin-off of Apple TV+’s ‘For All Mankind’, and France’s ‘Paris 1910’ is the third and final part of Canal+’s anthology series.

buzz title

Other series generating positive reviews include Summer of 1985, marketed by Media Res Intl. Fifth Season and co-titled by Whiskey on the Rocks director Bjorn Stein, focused on a nostalgic coming-of-age story darkened by sophisticated genre beats and with adolescence as a passageway into a more complex world and confrontation with the unknown. Although it’s a known proposition, the documentary series “Oligarchs and Dealers” garnered unanimous praise from viewers at the Cannes series. Oscar-nominated Martin Zandvliet’s (Land of Mine) “Harvest” (“Tractor’s Inheritance,” according to distributor APC) has fans, as does Movistar Plus+’s hilarious comedy “A Lot of People Have to Die,” starring Macarena García, which garnered critical acclaim.

And how does the Cannes series win titles?

Classic market concerns are weighing even harder on international distributors as sales cycles lengthen, visibility increases, and selling through the crowd becomes a top priority. “The Cannes Series is a very important starting point for us. Even without MipTV, the Cannes Series offers high visibility, a well-curated program and a good press presence,” said Freja Johanne Nørgaard Sørensen of Denmark’s DR Sales, which organized Harvest in the main competition. “We always have something new and we need a market to showcase it, and face-to-face meetings are essential,” added Helen Oro of Reinvent Yellow, which acquired “Snake Killer” before the Cannes series and organized meetings in Paris with major channels.

men’s anger

This year has been marked by great performances by men, from Gad to Dan Stevens, who plays a male character with inner rage, seen in a different light in The Terror: The Silver Devil. Pilou Asbaek, who played spin doctor Kaspar Djur in Borgen and eyepatch pirate Euron Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, stars in Prime Video’s first Danish original, Snakekiller, playing the brutal Brian “Smiley” Petersen, a member of Copenhagen’s notorious Uropatrullen drug squad and a heroin viper. drug lord. The focus of the Cannes series titles was wide-ranging. However, men’s anger and internal trauma have proven to be one of their most prolific problems.