From September 23 to 28, Brno will once again welcome serial killers. Not the kind that should make you change your route home, fortunately, but television series arriving from across Europe for the ninth edition of the Serial Killer International Festival.
Over six days, the festival will offer premieres, competition screenings, meetings with creators and a programme that travels from a Czech prison to an Icelandic restaurant, passing through a Norwegian emergency room, a wealthy Irish wedding in Tenerife and the smallpox epidemic that struck Wrocław in the 1960s.
For foreigners living in Brno, there is an important detail: every series will be shown in its original language with both Czech and English subtitles. Most screenings will also be followed by a discussion with the creators. The industry-focused TV Days programme, meanwhile, will be held almost entirely in English.
When and where is Serial Killer Festival 2026?
Serial Killer Festival will take place in Brno from Wednesday, September 23, to Monday, September 28, 2026.
Screenings will be divided among three central locations:
- Goose on the String Theatre, Zelný trh 9;
- Theatre on Orlí Street, Orlí 19;
- Television Institute, Dominikánská 11.
The opening ceremony will be held at Goose on the String Theatre on September 23, with the premiere of the Czech prison comedy Cell Block B. The festival will close at the same venue on September 27 with All for My Son, although the final winning-series screening is scheduled for September 28 at the Television Institute.
Which series will be presented?
The idea behind Serial Killer is not to ask visitors to watch an entire season in a dark room. The festival works more like a tasting menu: audiences usually see the first two episodes of each selected series, enough to discover something new without surrendering the whole week to it.
The main competition, Primetime Killer, brings together some of the most interesting recent productions from Central and Eastern Europe.
The opening title, Cell Block B, comes from director Jan Prušinovský and screenwriter Petr Kolečko, the duo behind successful Czech productions including Most!. Based partly on anecdotes told by actor Zdeněk Godla, it follows inmates serving time for less serious crimes in a rather peculiar section of a Czech prison.
Czech Television’s Friend is considerably darker. Inspired by a true case, it tells the story of a vulnerable child who forms a manipulative relationship with an adult he trusts. The Bulgarian drama Shattered Bonds follows six teenagers who each claim responsibility for the same murder, while the Polish series Proud centres on a young Warsaw model who unexpectedly becomes a father. Proud won the Grand Prize at Series Mania, with Ignacy Liss receiving the award for Best Male Performance.
Poland is also represented by Variola Vera, which combines hospital drama, retro espionage, documentary techniques and archive footage to revisit the 1963 smallpox outbreak in Wrocław.
The new Czech Killer section expands the local offering. Alongside Cell Block B and Friend, it includes Dare, a mysterious crime drama about a teenage night out with tragic consequences; All for My Son, a family drama starring David Novotný; and Record(wo)man, with Petr Uhlík playing the Czech athlete Zdeněk Koubek, whose life and gender transition made him an extraordinary figure in twentieth-century sport.
From a Helsinki bar to a Norwegian night shift
The International Panorama section gathers six European productions with very different stories.
Finland’s Atlantis Pasila is a young-adult comedy set in a rather unglamorous Helsinki bar. The French series Clean follows a group of women who are tired of being invisible, blending family drama with a talkative, rebellious comedy.
Sweden contributes Burden of Justice, a legal drama that became a major domestic success. Britain is represented by Dirty Business, an ironic but disturbing journey through the darker parts of British society, based on a true story.
The Norwegian medical drama Still Breathing follows the first night shift of a group of hospital workers – a situation in which, predictably, almost everything that can go wrong does. Spain’s The Anatomy of a Moment reconstructs the attempted coup of February 23, 1981, one of the defining episodes in the country’s modern democratic history.
Iceland, the Netherlands and some very complicated families
Iceland receives its own festival focus with three titles.
Reykjavik Fusion has been described as an Icelandic The Bear with a crime-thriller twist: its protagonist is a chef attempting to rebuild his life after prison. In the existential comedy My Funeral, a man decides to attend his own funeral, while As Long As We Live, created by and starring Anita Briem, explores a marriage shaken by a midlife crisis and the arrival of a young male babysitter.
The Dutch focus includes Bennie, a dramedy about an 18-year-old with Down syndrome seeking independence; Messed Up, Eva Crutzen’s sharp comedy about the crisis of turning thirty; and The Crash, an acclaimed reconstruction of the 1992 Bijlmer disaster, when an Israeli cargo plane crashed into an Amsterdam apartment complex.
Family relationships also provide the theme for another five European productions. Denmark’s Harvest has been jokingly presented as “Succession with tractors”, while the British drama Babies follows a couple struggling to conceive.
The Basque comedy Red Lights uses abrasive humour to approach painful subjects. Sweden’s My Brother, adapted from a novel by Karin Smirnoff, examines old and new family wounds. Finally, the Irish satire These Sacred Vows brings a group of wealthy guests to a bizarre wedding in Tenerife – with a premise that inevitably recalls The White Lotus.
The programme is completed by Best of Web Series, scheduled for September 26. Researcher Joel Bassaget, head of the Web Series World Cup, will present an overview of the state of web series in 2026, including the formats and trends shaping the medium.
Which guests will attend Serial Killer Festival?
The guest list is aimed less at celebrity hunters than at viewers and professionals curious about how European television is actually made. There are, however, several notable names.
British director Charles McDougall, whose television career includes international productions on both sides of the Atlantic, is among the announced speakers. He will be joined by Laurence Herszberg, founder and general director of Series Mania, and Steve Matthews, Head of Scripted Creative at Banijay Entertainment and a former executive producer at HBO Europe.
Dutch actress, writer and director Eva Crutzen will discuss Messed Up, the series she created and stars in. Other international guests include Beta Film executive Anna Rohde Seyfried, Swedish screenwriter Ulf Kvensler, Norwegian writers and directors Pål Sletaune and Sara Johnsen, Icelandic producer Andri Ómarsson, and ACT4 executive producer Hörður Rúnarsson.
The industry programme will also feature representatives from ARTE, ZDF Studios, Czech Television, FTV Prima, Oneplay, CANAL+, DR Sales and Stream.cz. Among them are ARTE executives Alexandre Piel and Virginie Padilla, ZDF Studios’ Yuliya Fischer, Czech Television’s Tereza Polachová and FTV Prima content director Jan Maxa.
Which events will be held in English?
The short answer is reassuring: international visitors will not be limited to the British and Irish productions.
All festival series are screened in their original language with both Czech and English subtitles, meaning the entire public screening programme is accessible to English-speaking audiences.
The Serial Killer TV Days, held at Theatre on Orlí Street from September 24 to 26, are even more international. The official programme states that its sessions, presentations and showcases are conducted in English. One session on Saturday, September 26, at 4 pm – concerning Czech support for television projects – is explicitly marked as being in Czech.
Among the most interesting English-language events on Thursday are a discussion about censorship and self-censorship, presentations of forthcoming productions from Czech Television, Oneplay, CANAL+ and FTV Prima, and conversations with Anna Rohde and Laurence Herszberg.
Friday’s programme looks at the rapid growth of vertical microdramas, includes a conversation with Steve Matthews and presents new productions from Iceland, the Netherlands, ARTE, ZDF Studios and DR Sales. Eva Crutzen will also speak about Messed Up and the line between specifically Dutch humour and more universal stories about millennial crisis.
Saturday turns towards the less visible machinery behind television: working conditions for actors, sustainability on set and the infrastructure required to build a healthy film industry. It will also include case studies devoted to productions based on real events, including July 22, Monyová, Riding in Darkness and Friend. Polish screenwriter Ola Hulbój, who worked on the third season of Netflix’s 1670, will discuss how persistent questions can become stories.
It is worth noting that TV Days is primarily intended for television and film professionals, journalists and academics. It requires a separate three-day accreditation costing €140, which also includes admission to festival screenings and evening networking events.
How much do tickets cost?
A standard Serial Killer Pass costs 450 CZK and provides access to all festival screenings, including premieres and competition titles.
Students, people aged 65 and over, and visitors with disabilities can purchase a reduced pass for 330 CZK.
Those interested in only one title can buy a ticket for an individual screening for 100 CZK. According to the organisers, these tickets will be sold at the venue ten minutes before the screening. One screening generally consists of two episodes.
The full pass is clearly the better option for anyone planning to attend several events. For everybody else, the single-ticket system leaves room for a spontaneous evening: choose a Nordic family drama, a Czech prison comedy or an Icelandic chef with a criminal past, then see whether the first two episodes are enough to create a new addiction.
The complete and potentially updated programme is available on the official Serial Killer Festival website. Tickets and accreditation details can be found on the official ticket page.
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