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SeriesFest, the event held in Denver, Colorado, has unveiled its latest pilot competition lineup.

The event, which runs April 29 to May 4, has revealed its Independent Pilot Competition, which features projects across drama, comedy, unscripted digital shorts and late-night.

This year’s crop features titles that star the likes of Mary Steenburgen, Harvey Guillén, Omar Epps, Ann-Margret, Roy Wood Jr., Shari Belafonte, Michael Kosta and Eric Roberts.

Other stars include Tauheed “2 Chainz” Epps, Barry Bostwick, Rutina Wesley, Joanna Leeds, Kate Burton, Jackie Hoffman, Emil Wakim, Vella Lovell, Alysia Reiner, Milana Vayntrub and Martin Kove.

SeriesFest has been the launch pad for over a dozen independent projects that have secured mainstream distribution including Cooper’s Bar, which landed at AMC, Generation Por Que, which was acquired by HBO and Everyone Is Doing Great, picked up by Hulu.

As Deadline covered last year, independent pilots are having a moment.

“We believe this year’s...

At the turn of the millennium, Cannes was taken over by the dot-coms. A fresh generation of technology start-ups descended on the Croisette, plastering the hotel fronts with banners and billboards and promising to revolutionize the film business thanks to this new-fangled technology called the internet. A year later, those banners were gone. The tech bubble had burst.

For Cannes 2022, replace dot-coms with crypto technology and the internet with the blockchain. Crypto and Nft-sponsored panels, parties and events are everywhere on the Croisette this year. Even the lead sponsorship of Cannes’ May 26 amfAR Gala comes from cryptocurrency exchange platform Ftx. The tech start-ups crowding into Cannes this year have new buzzwords — “Nft,” “metaverse,” “Web 3.0” — but their promise to revolutionize and democratize the movie business sounds eerily familiar.

“It does remind me a lot of the internet bubble days, which I was very close to and had a front row seat to,...