“Let’s get out of our echo chambers,” says EWC’s Thomas Gammeltoft , who is looking for old and young writers to team up in their new pilot “Bridging Generations/Connecting Audiences”.

“We need to (re)discover stories that build on shared intergenerational values, beliefs, realities, and dreams,” states European Writers Club (EWC), a network and accelerator programme supported by the EU Commission and Nordisk Film & TV Fond, amongst others.

Since 2021, the EWC has strived to strengthen and develop storytelling in European series by teaming up writers with new and inspiring connections. Or as they say: “We aim to spark and facilitate collaborations between creators, writers, broadcasters, and producers of European TV series.” Their first pilot gathered writers, producers and broadcasting commissioners at four one-week camps in the sessions “Boosting Ideas”, “Boosting Concepts”, and “Boosting Broadcasters”. Next up was “Boosting Impact”, which facilitated collaborations between the world of journalistic, scientific research and studies, and the world of storytellers.

On the 16th of October EWC launched their third pilot, “Bridging Generations/Connecting Audiences”.

“We all look at our individual screens. The old tradition of watching TV together on Sunday night doesn’t exist anymore,” says Thomas Gammeltoft, the Head of Projects at European Writers Club. He elaborates:

“There’s a huge gap between the stories of the young and the stories of the old. On a broadcaster-level we can see that the audience is quite old, while the young people are at all kinds of other platforms. The challenge is: How do we tell stories that can cross borders and generations?”

Bridging Generations plans to attract teams consisting of one young and one older writer, with a minimum gap of 10 years. EU citizenship of residency is mandatory. EWC will provide an online meeting platform for writers to connect and team up across Europe before applying as a team (if they are not already a team). The call closes at the end of December 2024, and by March 2025. EWC will announce the 6-8 teams selected at Series Mania in Lille, France. The teams will later meet with broadcasters, sales companies, content publishers and an audience panel at three weekly camps.

“A lot of people in the business are talking about the need to look for younger generations on the platforms where they tell their stories. We need to understand why they are there, and embrace their stories. That’s what we encourage here,” says Thomas Gammeltoft, who mentions Norwegian Skam as a series that bridged generations. The series told a story of young people, but was also successful with older viewers.

He continues: “And look at a series like **Thomas Vinterberg’**s Families like ours (Familier som vores). It’s a huge project across many countries in the EU. It’s very important and extremely necessary that we can tell stories like that together. This is what European Writers Club wants to be a part of.”