Rai Cinema head Paolo del Brocco has sought to play down fears that its new film sales operation will take away business from Italian sales agents.
Speaking to Screen, del Brocco stressed that the organisation’s dedicated international sales division, Rai Cinema International Distribution, will offer a “very clear and simple” line-up of Italian films.
Rai Cinema International Distribution, which makes its market debut at the EFM today, launches with a slate of ten Italian films. All of them are backed by Rai Cinema, the film production division of state broadcaster Rai. They include Margherita Vicario’s Berlinale competition film Gloria!, Trudie Styler’s documentary An Ode to Naples and Gianni Amelio’s drama Battlefield.
The new film sales arm has been moved out of existing film and TV distributor Rai Com to be a standalone outfit within Rai Cinema. Del Brocco said it means that Rai Cinema is now a ‘completely integrated’ operation, active in production as well as distribution through 01 Distribution and sales through Rai Cinema International Distribution.
Rai Cinema International Distribution will handle international sales of new films which will later be managed by Rai Com for library exploitation.
The new sales arm is headed by Fulvio Firrito and currently has two staff. This is likely to rise to about four people.
Little gems
Rai Cinema has an annual budget of $85m and invests in a large slate of 50-70 Italian films a year. This has worried existing Italian sales agents who are concerned that it will be in a strong position to take on sales for the Italian projects it backs. Yesterday, the Union of Italian Exporters Anica, issued a statement expressing “concern about the entry into the market of a fully publicly funded operator.”
However, del Brocco said that it would be “impossible” for Rai Cinema International Distribution to take on all the films it co-produces. He noted that leading international distributors, particularly from France, put down big minimum guarantees to secure films from top Italian directors, such as Marco Bellocchio and Nanni Moretti. “We don’t want quickly to arrive to be such a distributor - it’s a matter of money very simply. And we don’t want to make problems for the other Italian distributors. We are at the service of the market.”
Rai Cinema will not be securing films by paying big minimum guarantees. “There is no fund for international distribution,” said del Brocco. “We don’t take money from our budget for international distribution for giving minimum guarantees.”
He noted that its first slate was full of “little gems” rather than big Italian films. “I don’t think that we will take many movies.”
Rational approach
The goal, he said, is to improve the visibility of Italian cinema internationally and not to take away business from existing Italian sales agents.
Del Brocco explained that Rai has been active in international sales for many years through Rai Com. “So it’s not changing anything, just moving a piece of an activity from one company owned by Rai to another company owned by Rai - to make it more rational.”
“We will not take all the movies [backed by Rai Cinema] or many movies or the most important movies. We want to try to go very slowly, step by step and do what we can for the development of our films. I think it could be useful even for other Italian distributors.”
Del Brocco stressed that Italian producers whose films are backed by Rai Cinema would be under no obligation to go with Rai Cinema International Distribution for international sales. “We could not oblige anybody to do something that they don’t want to do - we have respect for independent producers.”
The majority of films that are backed by Rai Cinema “will remain available [to sales agents] because we are not taking all films,” said del Brocco. He also stressed that Rai’s new sales arm would not be the “last resort” for films unable to find a sales agent. “We are not obliged to do anything,” he said.
He also said that Rai Cinema International Distribution would not be in the market for international titles, apart from those potentially backed by Italian producers.
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