As part of the Seriencamp Conference (3-5 June), the Master's graduates of the »Serial Storytelling« programme at the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln will present their Master's series projects to an industry audience in Cologne today at 4 pm.

Over the past two years, fifteen authors from Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Serbia and the USA have analysed, researched and developed classic and innovative forms of serial storytelling. This has resulted in numerous series projects - in the ‘German-language track’ for the local audience and in the ‘international track’ in English for the international series market. 
At today's Final Master's Pitch, the graduates will present their Master's projects as well as selected series projects that were developed jointly in the ‘Writers' Lab’ in cooperation with ZDF/ZDFneo. The entire range of genres will be pitched in front of an international industry audience – from comedy and dramedy to psychological drama, thriller and biopic to mystery and fantasy. With their individual series concepts as well as their different focuses, talents and cultural backgrounds, the aspiring series writers will recommend themselves to the industry in order to help shape the future series landscape. 
At the subsequent get-together in cooperation with Network Movie, there will be the opportunity to talk to the up-and-coming talents.

The four-semester international Master's degree programme »Serial Storytelling« is the first and still the only international Master's degree programme on collaborative writing in Europe. Students analyse the secrets of success of popular series and develop their own series concepts – accompanied by renowned series creators as lecturers such as Matt Hastings (»The Handmaid’s Tale«), Bob Konrad (»Kleo«), Denise Harkavy (»The Expanse«), Kelly Souders (»Smallville«), Philip Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann (»How To Sell Drugs Online [Fast]«), Annette Hess (»The Interpreter of Silence«, »Ku’damm 56/59/63«), Tyron Ricketts (»Sam – a Saxon«), Frank Spotnitz (»X-Files«, »The Man in the High Castle«), Hagai Levi (»The Affair«, »In Treatment«), Jeppe Gjervig Gram (»Borgen, »Follow the Money«) or Stanislavs Tokalovs & Teodora Markova (»Soviet Jeans«).

In addition to series dramaturgy and character development, the »Writers' Room« as a central model of collective writing is at the centre of the practical work. At the end of the programme, students develop and elaborate an original series concept as a master’s degree project.

Renowned partners such as RTL, ZDF/ZDFneo, btf bildundtonfabrik, Network Movie as well as the Series Camp, Series Mania and the Film Festival Cologne support the programme.

Graduates of the MA Serial Storytelling programme work as creators or in writers' rooms for serial formats (including »Tschugger«, SRF; »Maxton Hall«, Amazon; »Kljun/Awake«, Nova S; »1899«, Netflix; »How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)«, Netflix), as games, transmedia, audio book and VR authors, as script consultants and editors for a wide range of series markets and platforms.

The degree programme is offered every two years. The next class will start in the winter semester 2025/26.

Information on the graduates and their projects can be found in the graduation brochure and at www.serialstorytelling.com
 

Created on 04.06.2025