RomaTvScreenings, the new Industry Week section which, last July, alongside the now well-established RomaTvPitching & Speed Dating sections, presented the best in Italian TV drama to international television network schedulers, has passed its first test.
And now Industry Week, the market dedicated to products and ideas organized by the Fondazione Roberto Rossellini per l’Audiovisivo [Roberto Rossellini Foundation for Audiovisuals] during the RomaFictionFest, is preparing for an even greater challenge: to consolidate an event that intends to become an unmissable rendezvous for the international TV drama community, following its debut before members of the trade from all over the world.
Encouraged by the results of the first edition which was attended by over 1,000 participants and more than 90 international guests from 6 different continents (commissioning editors and schedulers from the world’s main networks), Industry Week is aiming to strengthen its position by paying even more attention to developing international coproductions as well as the large scale promotion of Italian products.

This is a challenge that, for Kass Thomas, assistant director of RomaTvScreenings and RomaTvPitching & Speed Dating (run respectively by Carlo Macchitella and Pat Ferns), involves creating a portal for the key figures in the world TV business to interact, a specially designed “venue” that gives sector operators an opportunity to dialogue before and after the Festival: “This will be a place for exchanging visibility and information that will be active all year round, a huge network where producers and distributors can make their material accessible, create new relationships and consolidate those that they have already established. An indispensable tool for helping the event to grow”.

There are also plans to increase the catchment area “by discovering less visible territories and markets that are potentially interesting for Italian products by attending key functions such as Mipcom in Cannes “” where RomaFictionFest will have its own stand (Editor’s note: see below)”.

While we wait for more details and advance news about the 2010 edition of RomaFictionFest, sponsored by the Regione Lazio, Chamber of Commerce of Rome and the APT (Association of TV Producers) in collaboration with the ICE Italian Foreign Trade Commission and Sviluppo Lazio, the dates for the event – July 12th -17th 2010 – have already been announced by the president of the Fondazione Roberto Rossellini per l’Audiovisivo, Francesco Gesualdi, at the last Venice Film Festival.