30/10/2009

Two hundred and eighty buyers and 90 sales companies from 14 countries were present at The Business Street (TBS) market of the Rome International Film Festival, which ended last week.

Sesto Cifola, head of international sales at RAI Trade, says of the market run by Roberto Cicutto: "By now, we've come to think of TBS as an appointment on the industry calendar in the latter part of the year that most international film distributors simply wouldn't want to miss. In fact, we noticed on this occasion that the participants invited to attend were joined by other companies that chose to take part on their own initiative.

"I'm convinced that the informal, unstructured formula for the market is the secret of its success, and so I tend to think that the atmosphere at the Bernini Bristol Hotel is going to become more and more like what you get in the halls of the Majestic on the Croisette, or at the Sutton Place in Toronto."

At the market, RAI Trade sold Alessandro Angelini’s Keep Your Head Up [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Alessandro Angelini
film profile] to Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece and Australia, and is in negotiations with Germany, France and Brazil. Valerio Mieli’s Ten Winters [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Michele Riondino - actor
interview: Valerio Mieli
film profile] was picked for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with deals underway for France, Japan, Argentina and Taiwan.

Renzo Martinelli’s Barbarossa [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] has been sold in the former Soviet republics, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands, and Lebanon and the Middle East, with the company negotiating pick-ups Greece, Korea, China, Israel, Germany and Austria, and Brazil and Latin America.

For Citto Masselli’s Le Ombre Rosse, negotiations have begun with France, Switzerland and Belgium. Although Ex [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Fausto Brizzi had already been presented at other markets over the course of the year, in Rome more sales were formalized, adding Puerto Rico and Hong Kong to the film’s long list of territories, with further negotiations underway for Scandinavia, Colombia, and Greece.

Cifola adds: "We have also started negotiations on important films now in post-production, having had the opportunity to show rushes to our clients attending the Rome market. These include Stefano Incerti’s Gorbaciov, Il Cassiere col Vizio del Gioco, starring Toni Servillo (which will be ready in early 2010), over which we’re about to enter into serious negotiations for France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Brazil."

Intramovies, headed by Paola Corvino, in Rome began advanced negotiations with France, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Argentina and the US for all of its films screened at the festival or presented in the market’s video library: The Man Who Will Come [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Giorgio Diritti
film profile], Sea Violet [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Marpiccolo [+see also:
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film profile], The Case of Unfaithful Klara, Giulia Non Esce la Sera [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Bollywood Hero.

(Translated from Italian)