Roughly a year after its launch, Italian state broadcaster RAI’s new sales unit for film is at Cannes with its first full-fledged slate headlined by surreal Western “Heads or Tails” starring John C. Reilly as Buffalo Bill during his stay in Italy that is launching in Un Certain Regard.
The RAI Cinema International Distribution slate also includes a new under-the-radar doc by prominent Russian documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, known for “Gunda” and “Aquarela.” Kossakovsky is now making another ecology-themed doc titled “Tears for Firs” in collaboration with Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso, a pioneer in the plant neurobiology movement who has written several best-selling books including “Tree Stories.” “It’s about the entire life cycle of trees and the correlation between plant life and the life of our planet,” said RAI Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco.
“Tears for First” is being produced by Rome-based Be Water Film with RAI Cinema.
Del Brocco in Cannes spoke to Variety about how the new Italian sales outfit has been faring and what’s in its pipeline.
Why did you launch a sales unit and how has it been going?
We are Italy’s main movie producers, so it made sense for us to complete the integration of our film business by starting to directly handle sales on a small portion of the films that we produce, co-produce, and distribute in order to give them greater visibility in global markets. Both in terms of commercial sales and distribution and also greater participation in festivals. We have essentially geared our sales side mainly towards new Italian cinema, as our slate shows. And after a year we have a more solid lineup and some results to show. We started with Margherita Vicario’s musical comedy “Gloria!” which sold to 40 countries, we sold Trudy Styler’s documentary “Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples” to 35 countries, including to Hulu in the U.S. And we recently had great success with “Madly” by “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese that has sold to 40 territories and is still selling. More importantly, like “Perfect Strangers” we are selling remake rights. We just sold “Madly” to China and Paolo will be attending the Shanghai Film Festival with this film.
What are your expectations for ‘Heads or Tails’ in terms of sales?
So, first off, it’s the second feature by these two directors, Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppi, whose previous film “The Tale of King Crab” made a splash in Directors’ Fortnight. It’s a very original film which I think is going to sell well and we are also distributing it in Italy, so we really believe in it. The cast is excellent because, besides John C. Reilly ,it has Alessandro Borghi (“Supersex”) and French star Nadia Tereszkiewicz (“Red Island”). And it’s a very gripping story about when Buffalo Bill came to Italy. So it’s a very buzzy film and we’ve had plenty of buyers at the market screenings. Of course the fact that it’s playing towards the end of the festival means we can’t benefit from reviews yet, but it is sparking great interest and these are directors who we want to continue to work with going forward.
Below are other standout fresh titles in RAI Cinema International Distribution slate:
— “A Year of School,” directed by Laura Samani. This is the second feature by Samani who made a splash with “Small Body” that was a 2021 Cannes Critics’ Week standout. It’s an adaptation of Italian author Giani Stuparich’s 1929 novel of the same name that’s been transposed to 2007 and set in all-male high-school class in Trieste where the arrival of an exuberant 17-year-old Swedish girl named Fred disrupts existing dynamics.
— “Siblings,” directed by Greta Scarano. Matilda De Angelis (“Fuori”) stars as the sister of an autistic man named Omar who is forced to return to her hometown to care for her older brother named Omar in this tender comedy that marks the directorial debut of Scarano, an actor known for roles in “The Name of The Rose” and the Italian adaptation of British TV series “Liar.”
— “Elisa — Io la volevo uccidere.” A new psychological drama by Italian director Leonardo Di Costanzo (“The Inner Cage,” “The Intruder”) toplining French-Moroccan multi-hyphenate Roschd Zem (“Days of Glory,” “The Innocent”) and Italy’s Barbara Ronchi (“Kidnapped”).
–– “Christmas Song,” a doc by Roberta Torre (“Tano to Die For”) about female inmates in a Milan penitentiary who are preparing to perform Christmas carols behind bars and provides several backstories of why they are in jail.
