Rome MIA: Italy’s True Colours Takes Sales on ‘The Girl and the Giants’ and ‘The Guest Room’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Italian sales company True Colours has taken international sales on two spanking new Cinema Italiano titles with strong cast elements in the leadup to Rome’s MIA market: “Fortuna – The Girl and the Giants,” a dark fable starring Valeria Golino, and Rome-set psychological thriller “The Guest Room,” toplining International Emmy-nominated Guido Caprino.
True Colours chief Gaetano Maiorino said his company has booked physical screenings for five of its films set for market premieres at the MIA mart – the acronym stands for Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo, or International Audiovisual Market – that will take place as a hybrid physical and online event Oct. 14-18 in Rome.
“It looks like buyers are coming, and those who won’t be physically present will be attending online,” said Maiorino. He noted that MIA will be “the first real bona-fide market” taking place physically since Berlin in February, prior to the pandemic.
Directed by Neapolitan first-timer Nicolangelo Gelormini, who served as an assistant to Paolo Sorrentino, “The Girl and the Giants” will be world-premiering at the Rome Film Festival this month. Maiorino praised Gelormini as “a technically talented director” with “a unique visual style.” Pic based on a true story is a dark fable that sees Golino (“Daughter of Mine”) play the mother of a six-year-old girl who lives in a high-rise on Naples’ outskirts. The girl has been traumatized by a tragic incident that has prompted her to retreat into a fantasy that she is an alien princess chased by giants, and Pina Turco (“Gomorrah”) plays a social worker who half-heartedly tries to help. “The Girl” is produced by Naples shingle Dazzle Communication and Indigo Film (“The Great Beauty”) in partnership with Rai Cinema, which will soon be releasing the film theatrically in Italy.
“The Guest Room,” which is produced by Lucky Red and is currently in post, is “a love story that turns into a psychological thriller,” said Maiorino. It will be presented to buyers at MIA during the market’s What’s Next Italy showcase. Directed by Stefano Lodovichi, who recently helmed legal thriller “The Trial,” which plays on Netflix. “Guest Room” turns on a stranger played by Guido Caprino, who was recently nominated for an International Emmy for his role as a tormented politician in TV series “1994.” The stranger knocks on the door of a Rome apartment where a broken-hearted woman is about to take her own life. Her love interest is played by Edoardo Pesce, who played the very bad guy in Matteo Garrone’s “Dogman.”
Besides “The Girl and the Giants,” the other four True Colours titles that will be having MIA market premieres with physical screenings are: Moroccan director Ismaël El Iraki’s gritty Casablanca-set “Zanka Contact,” Palestinian director Ameen Nayfeh’s “200 Meters,” which both world premiered in Venice. Austrian/Belgian co-prod “Why Not You,” by writer-director Evi Romen, which premiered in Zurich and explores the tragic consequences of a deadly attack in a gay club in Rome, and Italian romcom “Love Under House Arrest,” directed by Emiliano Corapi, released online in Italy in June.
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