13/03/2013 - Italian world sales agent Adriana Chiesa moves into film production with her new company ACEK

Under the label ACEK (Art Commerce and Entertainment) Adriana Chiesa, CEO of the Italian world sales Adriana Chiesa Enterprises, has launched a new company that will serve as  production outfit. The first projects are the documentary Acqua e zucchero, about the renowned Italian director of photography Carlo Di Palma and Italian comedy Pizza e datteri by the Kurdish-Iranian-Italian director Fariborz Kamkari, which will be made as a co-production with Berlin-based Rebis Film.

"We have to start looking at the markets in a different way because just from the point of view of sales it has become very difficult," said Chiesa. "The economical crisis has hit many markets. Greece, Portugal, Spain are in a deep crisis, even in Italy there are fewer buyers today." Theatrical release has become very difficult all over the world for independent cinema because the studios can go out with many prints and spend an unlimited amount of money for promotion. "European cinema always had a harder life. However, we have to realize that the lack of distribution generates the disappearance of certain distributors who were buying art films."

On top of the theatrical crisis there is the DVD crisis. "Video is falling out and television is mostly buying American films from the studios. Therefore we are in a situation where it is very difficult to generate revenues that the producers need to make their films and for us international sales agents to carry on our activity," Chiesa added. "On the other hand, we don't yet have reasonable compensation for new rights such as internet or VoD."

Although Adriana Chiesa Enterprises has a big library, with 300 titles, she felt the need to create the new company ACEK in order to focus on production. "Through the companies with whom I have worked throughout those years I can provide many services as production, coproductions as well as post-production in Rome. I think we have to reinvent ourselves. We don‘t abandon the activity of distributing worldwide but we will pick up only two or three films that we like."