20/05/2011

Italy’s powerhouse public film entities, Cinecittà Luce, and RAI Cinema, announced yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival that they are formalising their partnership to support first and second films. The announcement came from Cinecittà Luce Managing Director Luciano Sovena and his counterpart at RAI, Paolo Del Brocco.

According to the agreement, Cinecittà Luce will distribute 10 films per year by young talents produced by RAI Cinema. The first is already ready: Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo celeste [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Alice Rohrwacher
film profile], recently screened to success at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and vying for the Camera d'Or, which will be released at home on May 27.

Rohrwacher’s film will be followed by Sette opere di misericordia (“Seven Acts of Mercy”), the feature debut of brothers Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, and Piazza Garibaldi, the new documentary by Davide Ferrario on Garibaldi’s trip through Italy.

"We want to give visibility to films that need it,” said Del Brocco. "Moreover, we produce a lot of debut films, more than our 01 Distribution slate can handle. This partnership will also be good for international sales, festival presences and the launching of individual titles".

"This isn’t our first time working together,” added Sovena, "there have been many, such as Aureliano Amadei’s 20 Cigarettes [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and before that Saverio Costanzo’s Private [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Sicilian Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Marco Amenta. But today this partnership will be virtuous and more organic than it was in the past".

RAI Cinema further announced that it will invest in a project of low-cost web films, 12 films to be broadcast on the Internet in three years, of budgets under €150,000.

Said Del Brocco: "The first is called True Love, the directors are young and shot the film entirely in America. We will also broadcast it on our TV channel, RAi Movie".

(Translated from Italian)