The third edition of EastSeries took place in Odesa on July 18-19. It is a drama series pitching competition organized by the Odesa International Film Festival Film Industry Office Team, powered by ScripTeast - a master training program for the best Eastern European scriptwriters, in partnership with Series Mania, a unique event entirely dedicated to series and supported by Star Media, the biggest international film company in Ukraine.

Six drama series projects from Eastern Europe with international potential were selected for participation:

CARPATHIA Marysia Nіkіtiuk, Maryna Stepanska, Nariman Aliev (Ukraine)
DEAD AND MARRIED by Kristina Jilly (Hungary)
DISSTAF by Nenad Antonovic (Croatia)
HAPPY NATION by Dmytro Hrypun (Ukraine)
SALVIA by Stefan Peca (Romania)
THE GIFT by Olga Chajdas, Marta Konarzewska (Poland)

Following pitching training by the renowned tutor and producer Agathe Berman, the participating writers, directors and producers pitched their projects to a jury and public audience that included broadcasters, distributors and potential co-producers.

The jury consisted of Adrienne Frejacques Commissioning Editor Drama Department, ARTE (France), Mirela Nastase Director ZDF Enterprises (Germany), Francesco Capurro, Head of Series Mania Forum (France), Dariusz Jablonski, President, ScripTeast / Independent Film Foundation (Poland) and Vlad Ryashin, General Producer, Star Media (Ukraine).

After due deliberation, the Jury awarded Olga Chajdas and Marta Konarzewska from Poland for project THE GIFT with the invitation to UGC Writers Campus by Series Mania 2020. The Jury wrote: "We believe in the high potential of this project. It's a character driven story with a strong female lead upon transgenerational trauma which goes beyond the border of Poland and can reach an international audience".

The Star Media Award (post-production service package in the amount of USD 20.000) went to HAPPY NATION by Dmytro Hrypun (Ukraine). Giving the award the Jury commented: “One of the projects took us to a coming of age journey from childhood friendship to organized crime in post-Soviet Kyiv in the 90’s. It was efficient, colorful and promising.”