Canneseries Prizes 2022: ‘The Lesson,’ ‘Souls’ Win Big at TV Festival
John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIsraeli series “The Lesson,” a taut half-hour series parable on the vicious spiral of social media confrontation, took top honors on Wednesday night at a spirited 2022 Canneseries festival whose main competition was buoyed by titles from some of the boldest players in the business.With “The Lesson” co-lead, the extraordinary Maya Landsmann, walking off with best performance for her nuanced turn as a super-sized troubled teen who goads her liberal teacher into a personal attack on her physical appearance – a put-down which goes viral – the series can rate as the big winner at this year’s event.Produced by Yochanan Kredo at Jasmine TV for Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 – and scoring huge numbers when aired on the network – the show, written by Deakla Keydar and directed by Eitan Zur (“Asylum City”), also exemplifies the virtues of much best Israeli TV drama: Taut, pointed writing, great acting, direction which serves the drama, production values while wringing the most out of low budgets. “Thus is a hugely crafted series, everybody loved it at Canneseries,” Albin Lewi, Canneseries artistic director, told Variety.