17/10/2006

French based production and distribution operation Roissy Films has been in the business for over 30 years, so its staff know a thing or two about the international film market in general and markets for buying and selling films in particular.

Roissy Films’ 500-title catalogue includes a wide variety of films from world acclaimed arthouse, directors, including Luc Bresson, Costa Gavras, Jean-Luc Godard, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini and Marco Ferreri. It was also responsible for the international sales of Respiro: Grazia’s Island [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the second award-winning film by Emanuele Crialese, which was sold around the world.

Roissy Films is at the Business Street in Rome with three titles: Friends Forever, a comedy directed by Patrice Leconte, Those Happy Days by Eric Toledano and Oliver Nakache, and the drama Playing the Victim.

We caught up with the president of Roissy Films, Raphaël Berdugo to talk about Rome’s fledgling market.

What you do think about The Business Street here in Rome?
We think it is a good idea, and sensible to have a European market at this time of year, especially as MIFED in Milan has now closed and there is only the American Film Market, where we Europeans feel a little bit lost. This appointment fills the gap between Toronto and Berlin, which is a good thing. Then, obviously, being in Rome is a huge attraction, after all you don’t have to sell Rome, which provides the ideal backdrop for work. The only thing is that the screenings are rather dispersive, and normally distributors only need to watch the first ten minutes of a film to understand if they are interested in it, but here it is a bit difficult for them to move quickly from one place to another – that was one big advantage of Milan. Then we would have been happy with smaller theatres, for example at one point we had about 10 people in a 400-seat cinema.

Do you have any Italian projects currently on the go?
We are preparing a new Italian co-production in development now, which should be going on set in April/May 2007, probably filmed between Sicily and Rome. It is majority-share Italian production and Spain may also be entering as another co-production partner. It is still in an early stage at the moment, but it is the true story of a young girl who fights against the mafia. The director is Marco Amenta and he already made a TV drama of the story, called Diario di una siciliana ribelle (lit. “The Diary of a Sicilian Rebel”). The big screen version film will probably feature a major French actor, with an Italian actress playing the part of the young girl.