The Italian Global Series Festival returns next month with a lineup that spans detective drama, medical thrillers, espionage, and a milestone anniversary celebration. The second edition of the festival runs July 3 through July 11 across two coastal Italian cities, Rimini and Riccione, and is free to the general public.
This year's highlights include a celebration of the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, according to reporting by both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Actor Robert Powell will also mark the 50th anniversary of Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, originally intended to be written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Italy's longest-running soap opera, Un posto al sole, will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a special screening and discussion.
Among the new series receiving international premieres is Benidorm Is Murder, formerly titled Death in Benidorm, a Channel 5 detective drama starring John Hannah. Hannah plays Dennis, a former detective who leaves the chaos of Britain behind to run a bar in the Spanish resort town of Benidorm. When tourists start turning up dead, he finds himself reluctantly pulled back into detective work. His barmaid Rosa, a crime drama enthusiast played by Carolina Bécquer, pushes him forward. Hannah is set to attend the launch at the festival.
Also bowing internationally is Emergency 53, a Brazilian medical drama that won the Studio Babelsberg Production Excellence Award at the Berlinale Series Market earlier this year. The show follows doctors, nurses, and drivers of a mobile service unit as they manage personal and professional pressures while working to keep patients alive.
Other titles receiving their international launches include espionage thriller Secret Service, directed by Oscar winner James Marsh and starring Gemma Arterton, and Korean thriller Speaking Dead. The American anthology series The Terror With Devil in Silver, produced by Scott Free and starring Judith Light and CCH Pounder, is the first U.S. title competing at the festival.
The Limited Series section opens with France's Le Rouge et Le Noir, a new adaptation of Stendhal's The Red and the Black, starring Victor Belmondo. The section also includes Channel 4's Falling, the first romance from Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, directed by Peter Hoar.
The festival received more than 160 submissions from around the world this year. Its International Competition features 21 series from 15 countries. Jury duties are split among producer Marti Noxon, director Nicholas Meyer, and French actor Bruno Gouery.
Winners of the competitive sections will be announced at a closing night ceremony in Rimini on July 11.
