HBO Max has come off the back of a strong week with a double win at the Series Mania Awards for Polish series Proud.
Proud, about a gay man who takes care of his infant niece after a family tragedy strikes, won the Grand Prize in the international competition and scooped best actor for lead Ignacy Liss.
Led by Icelandic showrunner and actor Benedikt Erlingsson, the jury called Karol Klementewicz’s series “a deeply moving portrait of a young man at his breaking point, forced to take control of his life.”
Proud’s subject matter is a healthy tonic in dark times. On Wednesday, a report from the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe found writers are self-censoring due to fear over reprisal from far-right governments, as it questioned whether scribes will “decide to put their immigrant or LGBTQ stories in the bottom drawer.” The report was a major talking point at Series Mania.
Double victory for Proud caps off a good week for HBO, which launched HBO Max in the UK, unveiled a buzzy Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone trailer and had execs out in full force at Series Mania in Lille.
Dennis Kelly’s BBC series Waiting for the Out won Best Screenplay in the international competition while Best Actress went to Amanda Jansson, star of Nordic co-pro My Brother. Another BBC series, Mackenzie Crook’s Small Prophets, won Best Series in the separate International Panorama section, which also awarded that show’s actress Lauren Patel.
The audience award was given to Dustfall, the Australian thriller starring The Newsreader’s Anna Torv. Best French series went to TF1’s All Shapes of Us.
The awards cap off another Series Mania, which has been running since March 20.