JU N E/ JU LY 2 0 1 0 For the fourth year in a row, Rome will be the scene of fiction activity for five days in July at RomaFictionFest. The 2010 edition of the event will take place Monday, July 5 through Saturday, July 10 at venues throughout the city. Created by the Fondazione Roberto Rossellini per l’Audiovisivo and supported by the Lazio Region (where Rome is located), the Italian Television Producers Association and the Chamber of Commerce in Rome, the fest encompasses a variety of activities, including a competition and businessoriented Industry Week, to be directed by British TV executive Antony Root. RomaFictionFest events will be scattered throughout a number of venues this year, including Adriano Multiscreen Cinema, the Auditorium Conciliazione, Lumsa University and the Fiction Village. This latter location, the Fiction Village, is new this year, and promises to inject some fun into the market. The Village, which will be set up in the gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo, will include an open-air set where attendees can try their hand at filmmaking. Participants will get a chance to get a taste for all the professions involved in putting together a top notch fiction production, including direction, dubbing, editing, make-up artistry and more. All venues are near the Vatican and easily reachable on foot. Cities like Rome present a great challenge to festival and market organizers, not only for the numerous distractions offered to participants, but also for logistical reasons. Fortunately for the RomaFictionFest, once registrants reach the Multisala Adriano for accreditation, they are only a short walking distance to the other festival locations. For those who are headed to RomaFiction for strictly business purposes, there is Industry Week. According to organizers, Industry Week aims to concentrate on the opportunities, rather than the challenges of the entertainment business. Thus, the event is designed to create networking occasions for professionals. Industry Week is made up of two components: RomaTvScreenings and RomaTvPitching. The Screenings portion will kick things off, with activities on July 5 and 6. Over the course of two days, buyers and programming executives from around the world will have a chance to preview more than 50 new Italian fiction productions. New to the Screenings this year are the “Doing Business With…” panels, which will focus on the opportunities for sales and coproductions in specific countries and regions. The second half of Industry Week, RomaTvPitching, begins July 7 and lasts through July 8. The event will provide a first look at projects in development to acquisitions and co-production executives and commissioning editors. The programs previewed will all be projects that found funding through the fest’s Pitching Competition and Speed Dating sessions. RomaTvPitching will also include a competition portion, in which finalists from categories including Continuing Series, Serials, Comedy, TV Movies and TV Miniseries will vie for the award for Best Overall Pitch. A five-member international jury will preside over the top ten projects, and before the final round, Canadian Pat Ferns, director of RomaTvPitching, will teach a master class to prepare contestants. Producers will also have a chance to meet up with broadcasters during Speed Dating, a networking event that gives hopefuls 15 minutes to pitch their products to each executive. One Speed Dating event will take place on both Wednesday the 7th and Thursday the 8th. Where the festival is concerned, entries are judged as either Italian or international projects. The International Competition covers three categories, TV Drama, TV Comedy and Factual. For its part, the Italian Competition — the Fiction Italiana Edita — awards prizes in the categories of TV Movie, Miniseries, Continuing Series, Documentary and Docufiction. Both juries will be made up of industry professional selected by the event’s artistic director. In addition to the regular prizes, a special prize, the RomaFictionFest Award for Artistic Excellence will be awarded to Andy Garcia, for his work as an actor, producer, director and composer/ musician. Garcia made his directorial debut with The Lost City, and has since gone on to produce such movies as 2010’s City Island, which won the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. Additionally, Garcia was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in The Godfather. Other special prizes will include the TV Sorris e Canzoni Award, which will recognize excellence in Italian TV drama. A jury made up of readers of Sorrisi e Canzoni magazine will select winners in for best actor and actress across a variety of categories. Evening activities will also abound all week long. An impressive roster of stars will be on hand, as will prominent television composers. Plus, up and coming musical acts will be giving live performances. And if attendees don’t already have their hands full with Industry Week and the festival, they can pop into one of the screenings of classic TV programs that will be going on throughout the event, or learn to fight like an on-screen hero at a fencing class taught by Arms Master of Italian cinema, Renzo Musumeci Greco. Additionally, Mediaset and RAI will be jointly hosting a reception on Tuesday, July 6 in honor of the “business” crowd. Opening festivities will be ABC Studios’ Body of Proof . R o m a F i c t i o n F e s t Italy Celebrates Drama With A Fest And Mart Information as of June 25 Pictured above: the entrance to the fest’s headquarters. Pictured right: LL Cool J at the RFF June press conference. The actor stars inNCIS Los Angeles and is one of the Rome event’s guest stars. CSI’s Marg Helgenberger is one of the stars in attendance at the 2010 edition. V I D E O • A G E 16
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