Montalbano in Scotland: it sounds like a new episode of the successful TV series based on the novels by Camilleri.
But it isn’t: the Italian Culture association of the Metropolitan Police in London has asked Rai Trade for the complete series of Montalbano.
The aim: to use the series for professional and cultural training courses for officers at the most famous police station in the world.
This curious news confirms the great popularity of the Police Commissioner from Vigata.
Montalbano is a real television phenomenon in Italy and around the world: to date 14 movies have been made.
Since 1999, the year the first episode was screened, repeat after repeat has been shown in Italy totaling, as of March 2008, 60 prime time slots on the Rai.
This is a record considering the viewing figures of 35% (9 million viewers) for the first screenings which have never fallen below 20% (5 million) for the repeats.
On the eve of the last Mip Tv, in April, Rai Trade announced the sale of ten episodes of the series to ZDF enterprise in Germany and europe Image International in France for the cable and satellite channels NRJ14 and Rue 13eme.
“Commissario Montalbano” has already been sold to TV companies in around fifty countries in addition to France and Germany, including Belgium, Holland, China, Israel, Russia, Poland, Greece, Spain, Australia, South Korea, Hungary, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Brazil and the whole of Latin America.
The planet-wide success of the series is not limited to TV broadcasters, but has spread to the home video sector as well, with the sale of tens of thousands of DVDs.
Around thirty thousand copies have been sold in Australia alone through Aztec.
The series continues: four new movies based on the stories by Andrea Camilleri are currently being filmed.
They are: “La luna di carta”, “La vampa d’agosto”, “La pista di sabbia” and “Le ali della sfinge”.
Like the previous episodes, they are produced by Carlo Degli esposti of Palomar, directed by Alberto Sironi and star the same actors with Luca Zingaretti in the leading role.
Shooting will continue until next summer.
Rai Trade will be premiering “I demoni di San Pietroburgo “” The demons of St. Petersburg” at the Cannes Marché, a movie freely based on the biography of Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
The movie, directed by Giuliano Montaldo, stars Miki Manojlovic and Carolina Crescentini.