TORONTO – While at last year’s European Film Market, RAI Cinema’s CEO Paolo Del Brocco announced a soft launch of their new film sales arm – RAI Cinema International Distribution. After ten years as a RAI Producer, Fulvio Firrito was appointed head of the sales team. Now in full force at this year’s Cannes Festival, RAI’s Sales team includes Valentina Di Palma from Vision Distribution, Maria Lanfranchi who recently joined from Intramovies, and Claudia Julia Catalano, who handles industry relations. Before the new distribution arm, RAI’s subsidiary “RAI Com” handled the development and distribution of its audiovisual content, although it mostly focused on television. Since the shift, RAI Com now looks after the broadcaster’s library titles. But why is any of this relevant? For starters, Italian cinema is frequently sold and distributed by French and German Sales Companies.
The reasons are quite logical and tedious, at least to Italians, who are used to relying on the infrastructure and financial might of their European neighbours – across various industries. The film sector is no different. French and German Sales companies have well established international sales networks, and historically more government support. The extra state funding they receive enables them to invest more in international marketing and distribution.
Some examples of recent Italian films repped by foreign sales: Nanni Moretti’s most recent A Brighter Tomorrow (France’s Kinology), Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped (Germany’s The Match Factory), Piero Messina’s Another End (France’s Newen Connect) and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope (European media group Fremantle).
“This edition of Cannes is a key moment for us…it is time to be fully present in the market and communicate our positioning”, says Firrito. “For years, many Italian producers were turning to foreign sales agents for their films, while the international distribution landscape in Italy remained small. This new role plays a strategic part in promoting Italian cinema abroad, sharing our culture and identity, and supporting the entire industry’s growth.”
RAI Cinema has been investing in both budding and established artists, investing up to $85M a year in production. To that point, Firrito asserts that “International sales are not just a business opportunity…they are a way of promoting Italian culture and identity abroad, and of giving our films the recognition they deserve”.
RAI Cinema is making roughly 60 feature films annually, making it the leading production company in Italy. And RAI’s lineup at this year’s Cannes includes the Buffalo Bill Biopic Heads Or Tails? by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis. Of note as well is the Italian box office hit Madly by Paolo Genovese, Roberto Ando’s The Illusion, a film about the unification of Italy led by Garibaldi (starring Toni Servillo), and finally Siblings, directed by Greta Scarano (starring Matilda De Angelis).
(Image of Cannes Red Carpet courtesy of Denis Makarenko; image of Italian Pavilion at Cannes courtesy of MIA)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
