HOW ERIK MATTI'S 'THE SQUATTER' WON AT EUROPE'S 'BIGGEST' TV SERIES FESTIVAL

DIRECTOR ERIK MATTI and producer Dondon Monteverde recently revealed how their immigrant crime story “The Squatter” became a top winner at the recent international TV festival, Series Mania, in France.

- NATHALIE M. TOMADA

Now on its 15th year this 2024, Series Mania is the biggest dedicated TV series festival in Europe, as per Variety. “The Squatter” — the only Asian among the bunch of finalists — won alongside “George Blake” from Scotland’s Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald and “Sleeping Swans” from Austria’s Barbra Albert under Series makers, a “novel and high powered mentoring program” of Series Mania for feature filmmakers making the leap to TV. “The Squatter” secured €50,000 or around P3 million as prize, and is set to collaborate closely with Beta Films to develop a pilot script, among others.

Variety described Erik’s latest project as an east-meets-west eight-part crime series. It revolves around a Filipino overseas worker and a Ukrainian detective “unraveling a mystery that begins with a dead body in a small town and spans halfway across the globe.”

During a recent interview with direk Erik and Dondon, also the duo behind Reality MM Studios, they shared how they made it to Series Mania’s Seriesmakers.

Erik said it was invitational. Meaning, only filmmakers who had already participated in prestigious international festivals were enlisted to join.

“Of course, we knew about Series Mania, which is an international festival in Lille, France