12/02/2024 - As of Berlin's market and starting with the sale of Margherita Vicario’s Golden Bear competitor, RAI Cinema will be managing international distribution via a new brand

Gloria! [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Margherita Vicario
film profile], which marks the filmmaking debut of actress and singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario, has been selected to compete in the 74th Berlinale (running 15 - 25 February), which will also be a baptism, of sorts, for new brand RAI Cinema International Distribution, who will be bringing the movie to the European Film Market.

This new structure is the product of an agreement between RAI Cinema and RAI Com, aimed at optimising RAI Group’s film distribution activities abroad, and enhancing visibility of Italian cinema around the world. As such, as of February 2024, RAI Cinema will be managing international distribution of new films, whose library catalogue exploitations will then continue to be managed by RAI Com. The Berlinale’s EFM will see this new RAI Cinema International Distribution brand belonging to RAI - which is an offshoot of the public TV network led by CEO Paolo Del Brocco - kicking off it foreign market activities for the very first time.

The headlining title in the firm’s line up is Gloria!, which is one of the two Italian films competing for the Golden Bear (the other being Another End [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Piero Messina
film profile] by Piero Messina) and is an Italian-Swiss production coming courtesy of tempesta together with RAI Cinema and Tellfilm.

The firm’s line-up also includes five prominent Italian films. Palazzina Laf [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] is Michele Riondino’s dazzling debut and is an Italian-French co-production inspired by Elio Petri’s social cinema of denunciation which was designated the Critics’ Film of the Year in 2023, courtesy of Italy’s National Union of Italian Film Critics. Felicità [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], meanwhile, by Micaela Ramazotti – another example of an actor stepping behind the cameras - revolves around one woman’s fight to escape the coils of a dysfunctional family. The movie scooped an Audience Award in last year’s Orizzonti Extra section in Venice. As for Mia [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which tells the tale of one boy’s brutal manipulation of a fifteen-year-old girl, turning her life upside down, this opus is offered up by a tried and trusted director and screenwriter in the form of Ivano Di Matteo. Rounding off the RAI Cinema International Distribution line-up are Umberto Carteni’s comedy La seconda chance and Trudie Styler’s documentary Posso entrare? An Ode to Naples, which was presented at Rome Film Fest in 2023.

Fulvio Firrito and Elena Romano (as indicated by the EFM database) are responsible for the international sales efforts of this new brand, which will be based at the RAI Com/RAI Cinema stand in the Gropius Bau building.

(Translated from Italian)