EXCLUSIVE: Seriencamp 2026 will offer the industry solutions not “doom and gloom,” the artistic director of Germany’s top TV festival has said as he unveils full lineup.

The Cologne-set fest has just rounded out its program and conference strands with Paramount+’s Halo showrunner Steven Kane and veteran Hollywood agent Alan Greenspan joining the lineup.

Artistic director Gerhard Maier is busy applying the finishing touches to this year’s edition of Seriencamp and Maier is thinking hard about creative ways by which producers can navigate their way through some hard times.

He is also overseeing a programme lineup that includes the Wallander reboot, the world premiere of ARD’s Westend Girl starring Golden Globe nominee Helena Zengel, and big upcoming shows for American streamers like Disney+’s Alice and Steve and Prime Video’s Game of Keys.

“A lot of pillars through which you build your business and creative models seem to be in question at the moment so for us it’s how to pick up on those trajectories and put them in a programme that’s not doom and gloom,” Maier told Deadline. “We don’t want to say, ‘Everything is going to hell,’ but instead can offer solutions, inspiration, ideas for producers, writers and decision makers to have on their map when planning for the next five years.”

Maier has been busy thinking about new opportunities including microdrama, gaming IP and AI.

On the former, he is keen to explore further a bustling industry that emerged in Asia and has been taken up by Hollywood. In Germany, he says “there is a lot of confusion over what a microdrama is.” “I have only spoken with four indies who in my opinion have produced microdrama and are aware of what it means to be data driven and rooted in economies of scale,” he added. “This only works if you do 25 [microdramas] a year rather than a one-off project.”

A special microdrama track will include Gregor Sauter (Red Pony), media strategist Bo Zhang (Bolytics), writer Will Buckingham, producer Felix Mann (WennDann Film), Brooklyn Coffeeshop creator Nitay Dagan and showrunner Lukas Lankisch (VEAM), all examining vertical video “from a wide range of strategic, creative, and economic perspectives,” according to the fest.

Maier wants to connect thinking around microdrama and IP and “discuss how producers can leverage intellectual property in interesting ways.”

With this in mind, U.S. showrunner Kane is a huge get. He oversaw the hit adaptation of the Halo video game for Paramount+ and his talk about “the challenges of adapting games from a series perspective” comes with gaming IP more popular than ever. Greenspan, meanwhile, who recently launched Munich and London-based management and production firm Bridge MP, will answer questions on “organic co-production development and packaging in the series sector.”

Structures “radically upended”

Unsurprisingly for any modern TV fest, Seriencamp will tackle AI head on with, for the first time, a dedicated Plot Next strand including a session with Netflix’s The Marquise showrunner Pandora de Cunha Telles and a discussion of what AI-supported work looks like in the writers’ room of German telenovela Rote Rosen.

While acknowledging that he is “very very critical of certain kinds of AI,” Maier said Seriencamp will once again take a practical approach. “We want to answer the questions about working with AI-powered tools and how that changes production processes,” he added. “The hierarchical stucture of filmmaking is being radically upended. We want to talk about where it is being used, where it needs to be discussed and what is already happening so we can draw a framework for policy decisions.”

Seriencamp is of course all about the shows. ZDF’s The Flaws is competition winner and the team have landed starry ones likes Wallander and Westend Girl, which Maier said come from creatives who are “regular guests” at Seriencamp.

Streamer shows like Alice & Steve and Prime Video’s new German version of Game of Keys tap into stories about relationships, while there are splashy co-pros in the Work in Progress section in the shape of the Gibbons’ brothers The Reluctant Vampire and Bryan Elsley’s Counsels, both of which are made by the BBC and ZDF. Elsley will be in town addressing the fest.

While world premieres are of course important, Maier said he wants the lineup to be “cohesive.” He therefore set out Seriencamp’s commitment to female voices, which will see shows created by women screen from nations ranging from Bangladesh to Palestine.

One of the German industry’s most prominent female voices of this generation has been HBO Max Germany boss Anke Greifeneder and she will be in Cologne receiving the Deadline TV Disruptor Award.

Maier said the highly-rated industry vet greenlit “some of the bravest and most daring series” out of Germany, which he feels “may be lacking a bit” at the moment. “She was one of our earliest guests at Seriencamp back when original TV shows from Germany were not done as much and she had such a clear vision of what she wanted to do,” celebrated Maier.

Seriencamp runs June 9 to 11.