The fourth edition of Business Street, the International Film Market, ended on 19th October, in Rome, with a 16% increase in participants.

Business Street was part of the Rome International Film Festival, held from 15th “” 19th October, in Via Veneto, the Terrace of the Hotel Bernini Bristol, the Spazio Cinema, the Hotel Majestic, the Casa del Cinema and the Green House at the Auditorium.

With positive results bucking the downward trend registered by other market events, Business Street is defining its identity more clearly whilst at the same time building its future.

The comments received from participants attending the event highlight this process.

A desire for a “quality European movie” market emerges.  A market which is part of a “constant work flow” encompassing the major international events of the year.  The “Terrace” “” in the Hotel Bernini, the hub of all the meetings “” is a very Roman way of presenting the informal setup the organizers want to promote, favoring unscheduled meetings which are often “the ones that seal the deal”.  For some, the Rome event is the place to launch co-production projects, for others it is the best place to start rather than conclude buying and selling activities: for the latter, the October event in Rome is seen as “preparation” for the American Film Market in November.  For others, it could even replace the AFM which Europeans are increasingly abandoning.  Asian buyers, in particular “” at least the ones we interviewed “” would like Business Street to move to the end of the year, further away from the Pusan and Tokyo festivals.  Many of the comments we received also mentioned Mifed, of which Business Street could be the legitimate heir and in at least one (authoritative) case, a request was made for the informal phase to be organized in such a way as to guarantee space for sales offices.

With regard to the screenings, although the quality of the movies was much appreciated, attention was drawn to the fact that they were poorly attended, a problem already raised at previous editions.  Maybe this was because “Rome is too beautiful to stay inside a movie theater”, and also because the meetings took up a lot of the time available.

One thing appears evident from all the comments gathered and that is that Business Street has been able to intercept the growing business demand which is increasingly linked to the planning and creative dimension and underlined by the New Cinema Network meetings, the section dedicated to co-productions.

Business Street and New Cinema Network are directed by Roberto Cicutto and coordinated by Diamara Parodi, Sylvain Auzou and Lucia Milazzotto.

TBS 2009/The declarations