10/05/2010

Now in its ninth edition, the Ibf - International Book Forum, scheduled from Thursday 13 to Saturday 15 May at the Lingotto Fiere Conference Centre: the business area of the International Book Fair dedicated to the trade in publishing and audiovisual rights for translation and adaptation. Created to foster the encounter between major publishing and cinema players, the IBF – thanks to the collaboration of the ICE - Istituto nazionale per il Commercio Estero/the national foreign trade institute, which believed in the project from the outset, and the decisive and constant support of Regione Piemonte, has achieved excellent results in terms of growth, dimensions and understanding of foreign markets, establishing itself as a strategic appointment in the diary of Italian and foreign publishers, literary agents, film, television and new media producers from all around the world.

The 2010 edition counts on confirming last year’s numbers with over 700 participants from over 30 countries (including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Romania, Russia, United States and Sweden), with publishers, literary agents, and talent scouts of television and cinema production companies. Italian and the best of international publishers, with a very significant presence from the film industry, meet at the IBF to construct relations and stipulate new contracts through the average of 6,000 meetings organised in advance that are held during the three days of the event. The most important production companies present at the IBF include: Imagine Entertainment owned by Ron Howard, Columbia Pictures - Sony Pictures Entertainment, Fox International, Warp Films, Fundament Film, and United Film Company. Among the talent agencies are International Creative Management of Al Pacino, Samuel L. Jackson and Woody Allen, and Agency for Performing Arts. And for the first time, from the 2010 Fair’s guest country, the production company UTV, an Indian entertainment giant.

Among the publishers accredited at the IBF, the British firm Faber & Faber which at the last edition acquired the rights to Il tempo materiale, the debut novel by Giorgio Vasta, the German Dva and the Indians Abhinav Publications, Har-Anand Publications, Diamond Pocket Books, PHI Learning, Pitambar Publishing Company, Planet Multimedia Publisher, Pustak Mahal, Shishu Sahitya Samsad, Star Publications, Sterling Publisher, Laxmi Publications, and Tushar Publications. The schedule of meetings and debates, reserved for the trade, includes appointments like Film on the book: the new transmedia frontiers, a focus on the changing French publishing market; Italian publishing in the USA: how to tackle the market, what opportunities for Italian publishers? Fiction on the book: good books for good TV fiction; Film on the book: unrequested advice to publishers from an author and film director with the film director Marco Ponti; Adapt-Lab: development, pitching and networking, a workshop project for the incubation and development of film or television adaptations from works of Italian fiction; Capitan Salgari, la forza dell’immaginazione, the presentation of the documentary film on Emilio Salgari by Minimum Fax Media.

Like every year, the accredited participants also have the availability of the IBF Lounge with the wine and food delicacies of. Every day, the IFSE - Italian Food Style Education, thanks to the contribution of Regione Piemonte, will offer haute cuisine dishes, bringing out the best in the outstanding products from all the provinces of the region. IFSE is a non-profit association founded to promote food made in Italy around the world. The now well-established collaboration will continue with GoAsti, with the Consorzio Operatori Turistici Asti e Monferrato and the Consorzio dell'Asti Spumante.

The International Book Forum is an initiative of the International Book Fair, organised by Biella Intraprendere in collaboration with the national institute for foreign trade (ICE) and made possible by the financial contribution of Regione Piemonte and the Ministry for Economic Development, in the framework of a Ministry-Region-ICE planning agreement.