Giorgia Priolo is head of project development and executive producer at the independent production house Film Kairos, founded in 2006. So far, the company has produced eight features – almost always in co-production with other European countries – that have often won prizes at international festivals.

Cineuropa: What does it mean for you to be the Italian Producer on the Move?
Giorgia Priolo: We were chosen by Filmitalia as Italy’s Producers on the Move on mostly on the basis of two of our films: Federico Bondi’s Black Sea [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] (winner of the Best Actress Golden Leopard at Locarno) and Marina Spada’s As the Shadow (presented in Venice Days). And also for the fact that we are a young company, just barely three years old. It’s an important opportunity for us to get to know other independent producers making arthouse films in other countries, who, like us, choose projects based on co-productions and a search for works that cross borders.

Being at Cannes with this initiative will definitely allow us to open co-production opportunities for our projects, to create a network of relationships and to board other projects. Especially since we began co-producing foreign films, such as Empire of the Wolves and The Valet [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film], and it was at Cannes, through the producers network, that we got Black Sea up and running – our first majority Italian co-production, which will be released in Romania in September and later in France.

What kinds of projects do you choose at Film Kairos?
We aim to make quality films that can be competitive on the international market and open to wide audiences. We don’t want to limit ourselves to making niche, “art house” cinema or exclusively “festival films”.

What projects are you taking to Cannes?
We’re preparing a number of projects, from low-budget films to large productions. These include Marina Spada’s third feature, Metafisica per le Scimmie (“Metaphysics for Monkeys”), a film on modernity from a female point of view, about a woman who uses philosophy to teach financial strategies to managers. The script is ready and we’re searching for the cast and financing.

Then there’s Enrico Pau’s new film, L’Accabadora, a period film set in Sardinia in the 1950s for which we’ve received screenplay development funds from the Ministry of Culture. The title refers to the anthropological figures of village women who brought “good death” – in other words, euthanasia. The budget for that should be €2.5m.

We also have Stefano Tummolini’s new film, a critical look at young university students, and a large project in co-production with Israel’s Metro Communication, Montedidio, which will be the first film adaptation of a novel by Erri De Luca. The script was written by Lara Fremder, it’s set in Naples and will have a budget of approximately €5m.

There’s also the sequel Mi Manda (Ancora) Picone [“Picone Sends Me (Again)”], written by Elvio Porta, the documentary 50 Italiani (“50 Italians”) by Flaminia Lubin, on Italians who adhered to the fascist regime but worked to save Jews, made with the Shoah museum; and, lastly, the first feature film by documentary filmmaker Fabiana Sargentini, Non Lo So Ancora (“I Still Don’t Know”), written with Morando Morandini.

Is there a type of filmmaking that inspires you?
In particular, with Enrico Pau’s L’Accabadora, we’d like to recreate a narrative-production model similar to Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Alexandre Mallet-Guy
interview : Charlotte Gainsbourg
interview : Emanuele Crialese
interview : Emanuele Crialese
interview : Fabrizio Mosca
fiche film] – a great period film whose story is very much rooted in a particular regional context, but with an international flavour.