Rai Cinema executive Paola Malanga has been appointed artistic director of the Rome Film Festival, succeeding Antonio Monda who has held the role since 2015.
The change at the helm of the Festa del Cinema – as the event is known locally – was announced on Tuesday evening (March 29) following a meeting of the board of directors of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, the body behind the festival.
Malanga’s appointment spans a three-year term, with the new artistic director scheduled to oversee the upcoming 17th edition of the festival in autumn 2022, for which dates have yet to be set.
She replaces Monda, who was given two terms of three-years as well as a one-year extension to shepherd an edition during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
Milan-born Malanga joined Italian public broadcaster Rai in 2015 and was most recently deputy director of Rai Cinema’s product division, which covers film production, cinema and television acquisitions as well as international distribution. She will step down in order to take up her new role.
Malanga has also been a journalist, film critic and author throughout her career.
“I accept this great challenge with the enthusiasm and love for cinema which have sustained my work over the past 30 years,” Malanga said. “We now have months of intense and indisputably exciting work ahead of us, the heart of which will be cinema in its many nuances.”
Commenting on her departure, Rai Cinema CEO Paolo Del Brocco described Malanga as “a precious executive, who managed every project she was involved in with great competence and vision”.
The Fondazione Cinema per Roma board of directors that made the appointed is chaired by Gian Luca Farinelli, who was appointed to head the body on Monday (March 28). He also heads the Bologna Film Archives and its film restoration lab.
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