Finalists announced in C21’s Digital Drama Pitch 2024

C21 has announced the finalists for the Digital Drama Pitch 2024, with seven projects shortlisted spanning Australia, Georgia, Lebanon, Iceland, Serbia and Bulgaria.

The C21 Digital Drama Pitch 2024 was born out of the high standard of entries received for the C21 Drama Series Pitch 2023. From more than 1,500 submissions from 37 countries, 10 projects were selected to pitch live at Content London. A further seven projects were chosen to create the Digital Drama Pitch.

A panel of industry judges will decide on a winning pitch, which will receive a £30,000 marketing package from C21Media to support development. The winning pitch will be announced in March.

The finalists, from established drama creators worldwide, are all bidding to attract additional finance and coproduction partners to take them to the next level.

The seven development projects are all available to view here, and are listed below:

LouLou
(The Talkies, Lebanon)
Loulou is a coming-of-age dramedy that shows a very distinct side of Arab youth – one that we typically don’t reveal to the outside world. The series boldly showcases an 18-year-old Saudi girl trying to make her music dreams come true while navigating her new life in the American University of Beirut.

Nino and Iliko
(1991 Productions, Georgia)
Newly Sovietised Georgia, 1930s – a period marked by fear and surveillance. The government compiles a list of thousands of “anti-Soviet criminals” who must be annihilated – they are arrested at night, executed without trial, or sent to labour camps in Siberia. Against this backdrop, two young dancers, Nino Ramishvili and Iliko Sukhishvili, cross paths on the Tbilisi Opera & Ballet Theater stage.

The Outrageously Fabulous World of Terry Logan
(Tama Films, Australia)
The Outrageously Fabulous World of Terry Logan is an eight-episode hero’s journey to authenticity that charts the irrepressible and indefatigable life of one Terry Logan – a 14-year-old gifted satirist in an all-queer, no-higher-stakes-than-a-kiss, young adult, outrageously fabulous world!

The Memory of Water
(Mondo Studio Films, Australia)
As a climate crisis starves her city of water, leaving it on the brink of collapse, Holly is called back to Amaris, the town she was raised in, to help her grandmother who is suffering unexplained bouts of memory loss.

Marija
(United Media, Serbia)
Young Marija, happily married with two sons, struggles to find work in a small town in Serbia. When she gets a job at the local council through her father’s school friend Milan, she can’t believe her luck. But her world turns upside down when Milan, the town mayor and her boss, sexually assaults her, and threatens to destroy her and her family if she tells anyone.

Battery
(Glassriver, Iceland)
The year is 1998 and BATTERY is the most popular band on the Icelandic music scene, with only two hits on the radio to show for it. They are true rock stars without the money to back it up. The only married man on the road is guitarist Daniel, who is torn between two worlds.

Gold War
(Glassriver, Iceland)
During the Cold War, the battle for supremacy was also transferred to sports. Hundreds of athletes have been subjected to mental and physical pressure to allow the Socialist bloc to show its superiority. One of the sports the USSR developed specifically for this competition was rhythmic gymnastics.

The Judges: