Netflix, Jerusalem film school Sam Spiegel launch round two of Series Lab

Netflix and Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film School have launched the second edition of Series Lab, bringing students to work with professional showrunners to develop Israeli series.

Participants will be mentored by producer and screenwriter Joe Peracchio of “The Flash,” “Scenes of a Marriage” associate producer Ossi Nishri, Ronit Weiss-Berkowitz (“The Girl From Oslo,” “A Touch Away”), Noah Stollman (“Our Boys,” head writer of “Fauda”) and Dror Mishani (“The Missing File,” “A Body That Works”).

Projects will go through the process of creating a graphic pitch deck with the professional guidance of Ananey-Paramount Creative Studio.

Dana Blankstein Cohen, executive director of Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, said it was “a great privilege” for the institution to be a major player in the Israeli television industry and to provide a platform for groundbreaking creators to bring local stories to viewers in Israel and around the world.

The Lab was established last year by Sam Spiegel with the support of Netflix and artistic consultancy of Hagai Levi (“Scenes from a Marriage,” “In Therapy”).

Producer and screenwriter Joe Peracchio of ‘The Flash’ will be a mentor for the 2023 second round of the Sam Spiegel Film School Series Lab with Netflix (Courtesy Sam Spiegel)

In its second edition, the Lab, directed by Mor Eldar, continues its collaboration with Netflix, and one exceptional project will receive the Netflix Series Development Award.

The Lab will also be working with three new partners, production company New Mandate Films, which develops both global film and television projects around Jewish and Israeli themes; Israeli entertainment content enterprise United King Films, whose business properties include cinema megaplexes and several TV channels; and The Jerusalem Film and Television Fund.

A total of eight Israeli projects from 100 submissions were selected for the Lab, all headed by first-time lead writers and six of them female-led.

Included in the eight projects are several series about the ultra-Orthodox community, with one about a single Haredi woman breaking into the Orthodox advertising world, another dealing with ultra-Orthodox matchmaking and yet another focusing on a Haredi bridal counselor.

One project is a dramedy about a high-tech professional discovering her mother living on the street, while another is the story of a park ranger looking into her father’s mysterious death.