02/06/2016 - We caught up with Catia Rossi, the head of the new sales company True Colours, born out of an agreement between Lucky Red and Indigo Film, producer of Paolo Sorrentino’s films

Sales executive of RAI’s film catalogue for 15 years, Catia Rossi was recently called upon for a new exciting venture, True Colours. It’s an Italian international sales company that was born last October out of a partnership between distributor Lucky Red, run by Andrea Occhipinti, and production company Indigo Film, which won an Oscar with The Great Beauty [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
film profile] by Paolo Sorrentino. An absolute innovation in the Italian and European arthouse film industry, and one to keep a close eye on over the next few months. 

At the Cannes Film Market 2016, True Colours concluded sales of Perfect Strangers [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Paolo Genovese (which made €17 million at the Italian box office) in a number of territories, including Spain, Greece, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, with negotiations currently underway with Germany and France, the United States, Latin America, Israel, Turkey, Japan and the Middle East. It also sold Un bacio [+see also:
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film profile] by Ivan Cotroneo to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, the Benelux countries, Australia and New Zealand, and 4K thriller Monolith by Ivan Silvestrini to Japan, South Korea, Turkey, the Middle East, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

“Our initial idea was not to sell Indigo or Lucky Red films”, explains Catia, “but to create an alternative to what’s already out there and sell films by all Italian producers, with the future aim of also intercepting non-Italian films. This will of course take a bit of time. We started with the Co-production Market in Rome, then we went to Turin, again focusing on co-productions, followed by Rotterdam to seek out non-Italian projects, and then Berlin. Our aim is to become a European sales company, and our role models are Match Factory and Films Distribution. First, though, we need to make ourselves known and gain the trust of buyers”.

Cineuropa: So the aim is to do what the French already do very well. After all, an increasing number of French producers are now opting for Italian films.
Catia Rossi: This is a good thing. Films Distribution doesn’t only go for Italian films, it goes for Hungarian films too! It had the prophetic ability to take on a debut film like Son of Saul [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: László Nemes
interview: László Rajk
film profile], before it was selected for Cannes or received any awards. It’s about acting on first impressions, the first pieces of hearsay, reading the initial storyline, basically it’s about establishing a network of relationships with people and getting information on things that are perhaps still in the early stages of development, evaluating and finally gaining access to a project. The French are good at this. I hope we’ll also be able to set up such a process. Indigo and Lucky Red should, with True Colours in mind, as part of an overarching mechanism that also includes foreign sales. We’ve only been up and running for six months, but we’re working on it.

Meanwhile you have some very interesting films to offer the market and are starting to see results, for example with The Confessions [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roberto Andò
film profile] by Roberto Andò, a co-production between Italy and France that has already been bought all over the world.
We’re still selling The Confessions, and our new title is Perfect Strangers by Paolo Genovese, the only Italian film at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which has an excellent screenplay that I believe has great international appeal. It’s the story that counts in a market such as the Italian film market, which has few titles to its name that you can only sell on the basis of the director or the cast. Then we have films that are currently in post-production, such as Indivisibili [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Edoardo de Angelis
film profile] by Edoardo De Angelis, a Medusa film that we pitched to buyers in Berlin with a little promo reel, Slam by Andrea Molaioli, based on the book of the same name by Nick Hornby, and Naples ’44 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Francesco Patierno
film profile], the new documentary by Francesco Patierno with one big plus: Norman Lewis’s war diary excerpts on which the documentary is based are read out by Benedict Cumberbatch. 

You’re present in every market, you were even at MIPTV at Cannes.
Even though our core business is film, we decided to go to MIPTV because our line-up includes a TV series with a market, I delitti del Bar Lume, pure quality television, which was one of Sky Cinema Italia’s most watched programmes, has an excellent premise and is produced by Palomar, one of the most well-known Italian companies internationally thanks to TV series Montalbano and Braccialetti Rossi, which was nominated at the Emmys. We also took our film library of 60 Italian classics to Cannes. We’re increasingly seeing a sort of crossover, at MIPTV you meet film buyers who go to buy library titles for other exploitation rights or who are also interested in new TV series.

(Translated from Italian)