“A good series, for me, is a universe where you want to stay”

She is the first French woman to chair the long format jury of the CanneSeries festival.

Showrunner Fanny Herrero, creator of

and

, whom

met on the Croisette, talks about her role as president of the jury, the reception of

and the place of screenwriters in the world of serial creation .

What does it mean to you to be the president of the Cannes long format jury?

It is a great honor, a great pride.

I was even surprised to be offered it to me because I know that he usually always offers to creators of series, but rather to foreigners.

It's a, and I know that the success and international fame of

have something to do with it.

Finally, I imagine that this is also what I represent and I am very proud of it.

At the time, I thought to myself, it's too big for me.

Now I'm happy to be here and enjoying it.

How important is a festival like CannesSeries for a series?

Series festivals like CanneSeries or Series Mania, there are very few of them in the world, we are lucky to now have two in France, including CanneSeries, which is increasingly settling in and taking shape .

It's important because it allows us to all celebrate the art of the series together, and I use this word for drawing.

Festivals make it possible to affirm that it is not only industry and entertainment, but perhaps also art.

A festival serves to show that, in its diversity.

This is important because it creates a goal.

Now, in the industry, a bit like the Cannes Film Festival, we wonder if we will be ready for such and such a festival because it is an honor to possibly be in competition.

This therefore creates emulation, and for the series in selection, it is obviously an opportunity to be seen.

A price can also open a market.

This morning, we saw a Danish series, an Italian series, a Belgian series, these are series aimed at their own markets.

Whether or not they can cross borders is also what we are talking about here.

On what criteria can a series be judged?

Faced with a plethora of series, what makes a good series?

We will discuss it with the members of the jury.

I don't claim to have any truth.

I have my skills as an author and as a showrunner.

These fifteen years of experience obviously help me to be able to judge.

But I also have my opinion as a spectator and as a human being.

What makes a good series, for me, is first of all a world, a universe or an arena in which you want to stay, more than an hour and a half or two hours, which would be a film format.

The series offers something that can last and that we will want to be in, whatever the genre.

It relies a lot on the writing and the characters.

Do we get attached to them?

Do we have empathy for them?

Do we want to know what will happen to them?

Is there enough narrative material to carry us over several episodes?

Are the stories narratively rich enough with sufficiently high stakes?

Strong, that doesn't mean a gun to the head, it can be very intimate things, but which are strong for the character and which means that at the end of an episode or two, we are hooked and we wants to know what will happen to these people.

“Funny” is currently in the top 10 on Netflix, how have you felt the reception given to the series?

Were there any reactions that surprised, touched or moved you?

The release of

was a truly amazing moment in so many ways.

For me, it was also an important moment, after

, and to manage to offer something different, personal and to show in a certain way that I can do something else.

I can dig a rather personal furrow.

The feedback reinforced me in this, it obviously made me extremely happy to have very favorable press.

The reactions were also enthusiastic in the trade.

And then all these amazing messages from people I don't know.

I don't know what it represents in terms of audience, but the important thing was to feel that it touched people.

The message that touched me the most is that of a young man whom I do not know, but whose first name, surname and profile picture I can see that he is of North African origin.

He said to me: "Thank you for finally representing us in this way, in a gentle, tender, dignified and benevolent way,

without falling into clichés.

Thank you for representing French youth from immigration without caricature.

This touches me a lot because, precisely, it was important.

Do you want to write a season 2 of "Funny"?

Yes of course.

My co-authors and I want to continue to follow the characters, to confront them with the difficulty of this profession, their vocation, their choice of life.

So, yes, we are working for that anyway.

With the worldwide recognition of "Ten percent", are you tempted by a career in Hollywood?

So far, not really.

I wanted to be in my place in my country, in my language, in my ecosystem.

It also takes time to master your environment, your own tools.

It's a bit like the path of a lifetime, you never get there completely.

I also wanted to talk about my country, about what I feel.

Because one series leads to another and

is a very French, intimate and existential series.

But recently, I said to myself: “What if the next move was something broader, on other themes, something more feasible in the United States where the budgets are bigger?

For the moment, it's very open, but in any case, recently, I thought that would be possible and exciting!

So we'll see what happens.

A year after the Paroles de scénaristes movement, has the world of French fiction changed?

The ras-le-bol of the screenwriters was expressed individually, in unions, and on social networks, with Words from screenwriters, in negotiations, in interviews, etc.

Everyone played their part a little differently with different weapons.

It turns out that, in addition, the ecosystem is changing because there is such a need for series, for fiction.

In France, everything is changing since the traditional channels are also shaken up by the arrival of the platforms.

It moves the lines and it creates demand.

There is now a bit of unanimity in saying that the series is an art of storytelling.

As a result, the screenwriter is a really key position.

This raises the rating, I'm not necessarily talking about money, but about a symbolic position.

The producers realize that the sinews of war is all the same to have good writing.

Netflix picked me up...

How do you view French series today?

The more requests there are, the more demand there is.

Suddenly, the series are good and it also drains a lot of people who want to do this job.

People who say to themselves that it is possible to express themselves there, to develop unique things.

It's a pretty virtuous circle.

People of my generation were fed on the great American series and that also creates a generation of people with a sharper eye, and those who come after us, even more.

The level has risen collectively.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start writing series?

I would advise watching a lot of series, learning by writing, confronting what a screenplay is, and being very open to the world around us.

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