Arte’s Franco-Iranian coming-of-age web series Happiness won the Audience Choice Award at this year’s SerienCamp, capping off a record-breaking edition of Germany’s biggest television festival.
The series, created by Pouria Takavar and starring Ghazal Shojaei as an Iranian student navigating a new life in Paris, topped the audience vote after earning a five-minute standing ovation during its Cologne screening. Happiness launches its second season later this month.
The audience award victory came ahead of Arne Feldhusen’s absurdist ZDF comedy The Flaws, which finished second in the public vote after earlier winning SerienCamp’s official competition prize. Organizers announced the winners Friday as they reported record attendance figures for both the public festival and accompanying industry conference. Nearly 1,000 accredited industry professionals attended the three-day event, alongside roughly 4,000 festival guests.
The Critics’ Choice Award went to Channel 4’s Northern Irish drama Trespasses, the adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s acclaimed novel starring Gillian Anderson.
Other honors presented during the week included the European Series Development Award, which carries €50,000 ($57,000) in funding and went to German political thriller Radio Free Europe. The Co-Productions Pitch Award was awarded to Icelandic music-industry drama GusGus, while Czech horror-comedy project Paralegal won the Writers Vision Pitch Award.
The festival showcased around 20 premieres over three days, with a focus on international series, including Bangladeshi sci-fi horror series AnniE, from director Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Rehana Maryam Noor), and Braunschlag 1986, the sequel to the cult Austrian dark comedy.
Conference sessions focused heavily on the future of AI-driven television production, while executives, creators and producers used the event to pitch projects, seek financing and preview upcoming series. Speakers this year included Halo showrunner Steven Kane and Skins co-creator Bryan Elsley.
“We are thrilled to see awards go to series like The Flaws, which take stylistic risks, or Happiness, which is incredibly attuned to current events,” Seriencamp co-managing director Malko Solf said in a statement. “We also want to thank the Cologne audience, who turned out in large numbers over the three days of the festival, filled the theaters, and showed so much enthusiasm.”
The 13th edition of Seriencamp will return to Cologne from June 8-10, 2027.
