01/07/2016 - Yesterday the second development workshop for TV series organised by the Film Commission Torino Piemonte and TorinoFilmLab came to a close. Four prizes were awarded

The finalists of the second FictionLab with their tutors

Prison crime, teen drama, political drama, comedy, noir and much much more. There was a bit of everything between the nine finalist projects of the FictionLab, the development workshop for TV series organised by Film Commission Torino Piemonte and TorinoFilmLab, the second edition of which came to a close yesterday at the Casa del Cinema in Rome with the awards ceremony.

Of the nine projects that made it through to the second stage of the programme (see article), four came out on top. Ragazze di confine, a period drama written by Lara Prando, Benedetta Gallo and Raffaella Persichella (16 x 50-minute-long episodes) won the Rai Fiction award, which comes with €15,000 for getting the project off the ground: a modern coming-of-age story about two young girls who, in Trieste in 1947, are grappling with geographical and cultural conflict, nationalism and gender prejudices.

Sky, on the other hand, chose to award its prize, which also comes with €15,000, to dramedy Giamai'ca, written by Matteo Berdini and Ulrik Bruel Gerber (12 x 50-minute-long episodes), the anarchic, irreverent tale of the everyday reality of a working-class suburb trying to survive, with its many ethnicities that come together and clash with one another.

The jury for Anica and APT- the Association of Television Producers (made up of Stefano Balassone, Laurentina Guidotti, Federica Lucisano, Matteo Levi and Chiara Sbarigia) awarded prison crime series 41 BIS, written by Ivano Fachin and Sofia Bruschetta (12 x 50-minute episodes) with its €5,000 prize. The series tells the story of Diego, a law student who is wrongfully accused and convicted for the murder of his mother, and must find a way to survive in prison.

Thriller mystery Lombroso by Luca Pedretti, Giustino Pennino and Davide Orsini (12 x 50-minute episodes) instead won the prize awarded by the fine jury put together by the Film Commission Torino Piemonte and TorinoFilmLab (made up of critic Luca Bandirali, producer Verdiana Bixio, screenwriter Barbara Petronio, director Lucio Pellegrini and actor Fabio Troiano), which awarded this project, which centres around the fascinating and controversial figure of famous criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, its €5,000 prize.

Finally, there were two special mentions: one given by the ANICA-APT jury to Lombroso and the other by the Film Commission Torino Piemonte-TorinoFilmLab  jury to Arianna meccanica, a teen science fiction saga written by Matteo Visconti, Giacomo Bisanti and Costanza Durante.

(Translated from Italian)