Top producer to explore creativity in third Sam Spiegel Series lab

The third edition of the Sam Spiegel Series Lab is opening in June 2024, and among this year’s guests will be David Levine, the chief creative officer of Anonymous Content, which oversaw Alfonso Cuaron’s Disclaimer and Taika Waititi’s Time Bandits, as well the adaptations of Nickel Boys, Neuromancer, and East of Eden.

Levine, who was formerly cohead of drama at HBO and oversaw Westworld, Sharp Objects, Game of Thrones, and True Blood, will give a special master class to the participants.

Eight Israeli television projects were selected to take part will be in the Lab, which was established by the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, with the support of Netflix and Hagai Levi, who created In Therapy and Scenes from a Marriage, as an artistic consultant.

Acclaimed mentors to take part in projects

The projects will go through a thorough and intense process of script editing, in the hands of the acclaimed mentors Noah Stollman (Our Boys, Fauda), Keren Margalit (Yellow Peppers, Sleeping Bears), Ossi Nishri (script editor on Scenes from a Marriage), and Gal Zaid (Prisoners of War, which was adapted to Homeland).

The eight projects chosen are very diverse and feature new work by some of Israel’s most gifted up-and-coming creators.

And That’s Our Time, by Marc Grey (Tehran) and Nitai Gat, is about patients who cannot accept that their psychologist has committed suicide and try to prove that he was murdered.

Big Crater, by Aleeza Chanowitz (Chanshi), tells the story of a pregnant young woman who takes refuge on an ecological farm in the Negev and who tries to figure out what is going on when people start dying there.

Adi Adwan (Arabani) will be developing The Bride, about a Jewish police detective who investigates the death of a child in the Druze community.

Crossing the Line, by Rita Borodiyanski, will tell the story of a street-smart young woman who finds herself through her work at a West Bank checkpoint.

Detective from Mea She’arim, by Boaz Frenkel, is about a haredi detective searching for a man whose wife wants a divorce.

Bar Cohen and Tohar Sherman-Friedman’s Good Girls Go to Hell, based on a graphic novel, is about a rabbi’s daughter who questions her faith.

The Lampshade, by Tomer Shushan (White Eye), looks at a Holocaust survivor who hires a detective to bring the titular item, which was made out of his skin, back from a Nazi’s estate.

The Mouth, by Aurit Zamir (The Truth) and Shiri Nevo Fridental (All I Can Do), is about the plight of women forced into sex work in Buenos Aires in the early 20th century.

The Lab is supported by production company New Mandate Films, which develops both global film and television projects around Jewish and Israeli themes, and produced the Emmy-nominated film The Survivor and the upcoming documentary feature The Commandant’s Shadow, which just premiered in Docaviv and won a prize from Yad Vashem for outstanding Holocaust-related documentary; producer Gideon Tadmor; the Jerusalem Municipality; and the Sam Spiegel Estate.

Dana Blankstein Cohen, the executive director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, said, “In such a difficult and heartbreaking reality for our entire region, the role of creativity takes on a deeper meaning than ever.

“The possibility of giving room to diverse, brave, human, and extraordinary voices, those that need to reach the screen, is not taken for granted these days, and we are grateful for the possibility to give hope of a better future for artistic creation.”

Mor Eldar, the director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Series Labs added, “We are honored to be providing a ray of light to the young creators, in these harsh times, a chance to delve into their stories, which, we are sure, will capture the hearts of the audience in the future.”

The second edition of Series Mania culminated in a pitching event at the prestigious international television competition in France earlier this year.