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Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo, better known simply as MIA, is the Rome-based event that is a market, pitching forum, co-production hub and place where the content world connects with Italy.
More than 100 of the co-production projects that have passed through its doors have moved into production, countless distribution deals have been inked, early-stage shows pitched and business has been done in the Palazzo Barberini, the Rome museum that houses the event.
The setting means the backdrop is Canaletto and Caravaggio masterpieces. The event itself has a broad canvas, spanning animation, fiction, documentary and features. The trick for Gaia Tridente in her third year as Director, is to speak to each of those audiences, and make the event feel curated, despite that breadth.
MIA is promoted by ANICA, the Italian Association of Film, Audiovisual and Digital Industries that is chaired by Francesco Rutelli and APA, the Italian Audiovisual Producers Association, which is chaired by Chiara Sbarigia. As the event hits its tenth edition, Tridente sits down with Deadline to give a heads-up on what the 3,000 or so people who will be in the Italian capital can expect.
A lot can happen in 10 years. “Italy was a very good local producer, and interesting local shows or movies were released or sold across the world, but at the same time there was a need from the industry to be more connected with the international players, for more global trade,” Tridente says of the early days of the event. “MIA started slowly to really become a flagship, first of all, for the Italian community to get access to the international players. Some things have changed throughout the years; this will be the tenth anniversary and what we have achieved is significant in terms of what MIA has done in support of the industry, and not only the Italian one, because, we have an [international] coproduction market.”
A Ton Of Co-Productions
As the 10th anniversary rolls around, the MIA team have been crunching the numbers. “We tried to understand what the results were for projects presented within the MIA Coproduction Market, and how many of them have been really produced,” Tridente says. “We calculated that more than 100 works have actually been produced in the last years. That means that between feature films, drama series, documentaries and animation, MIA became a partner for those production companies who see that we are a good platform for them.”
A Co-Production Market & Pitching Forum spans each of the quadrants that MIA covers — drama, docs, animation, film — and Tridente says over 600 projects were submitted this year, up 20% on last year. About 60 will be presented on the ground. The projects hail from 90 countries in all. There was a notable uptick in the number of films submitted, with 32% more put in front of the movie selection committee this time.
Within the Drama sidebar, an industry committee selected 14 shows that will be presented from countries as far afield as France, Japan, the U.S. and Lebanon. There are two Italian shows in the mix, family thriller A Family Reunion from Cross Productions and and Uglycomics based on the Fumettibrutti graphic novel trilogy by Josephine Yole Signorelli, which hails from Wild Bunch’s Bim Produzione. There are two projects from the UK including WWII escape story Castle of the Eagles from Jeff Pope. The lineup also includes a female reinterpretation of Frankenstein and series based on the life Formula 1 driver Gilles Villeneuve.
In Conference: Katherine Pope, Clayton Townsend, Odessa Rae
The Co-Pro Market is a key part of what MIA does, but only one of the ingredients. There is a market, with space for exhibitors to show off their wares and a conference strand, which attracts some big names – “Mia is really a marketplace, but with a conference hub around it,” Tridente explains.
The roster this time includes Katherine Pope, President of Sony Pictures Television, and Odessa Rae, who produced the Navalny, feature doc about the titular Russian dissident. U.S. producer Clayton Townsend, erstwhile collaborator of Oliver Stone, will also feature.
Other highlights this time include a showcase of book IP that will see French and Italian publishers present some of the hottest editorial titles of the year – each of which has rights up for grabs. Tridente says it’s part of an effort to anchor MIA in the whole creative process. “We would like to position ourselves more in the space of scouting, for IP and for projects, and be a place for the discovery of the future success stories,” she says.
An ongoing relationship with the European Broadcasting Union will see the organization, which is comprised of Europe’s pubcasters, gather its members for a behind closed doors catch-up, but also have an open presentation from those in its number, who will showcase a dozen of the best projects from across the membership.
Challenge and opportunity
No industry event exists in a vacuum and Tridente is realistic about market conditions, but notes challenges also bring opportunity: “Yes, this year have been tricky for many countries, especially in Europe, but also in the U.S., sure. At the same time, my feeling is that when production companies and the major studios have this kind of moment of suspension, they can maybe more be concentrated on development.”
The MIA Director points to the increase in projects submitted to the Co-Production Market, which could suggest greater emphasis on development. It likely also points to the challenges around getting series funded, which can make a slot at a market like this invaluable.
Certainly, in Rome, the conversation will be around specific projects as well as how the wider business will evolve.
“I think that it could be also a good moment to try to design and to reshape things that could be interesting for the future of the business. We are now facing new kinds of business models and things that two years ago would not have been thinking about.”
With producers, buyers, sellers and execs in town, gathering in Rome in the fall will be an important staging post to have those discussions and bring together the worlds of fiction, docs, animation and film.
