A spring breeze of fresh Italian titles is leading Rai Com’s line-up this MipTV

New TV shows, movies, documentaries and operas ready to be delivered in April

Rome, April 6^th, 2021 The Italian pubcaster’s commercial branch presents a spring line-up of fresh titles ready to be delivered to the international market. A spring breeze of new empowered women, charming detectives, top-notch movies, comedies, documentaries and operas is coming from Italy.

TV Shows

A brand-new detective crime set in southern Italy is leading Rai’s line-up. Embodied by a strong woman who is fighting the stereotypes within the system: Lolita Lobosco (8×50’ Detective-Crime). She is the deputy commissioner of a police station in the charming city of Bari. Lolita has exceptional professional skills, strong dedication to work and good instinct. As a single woman dominating a male-oriented workplace, Lolita Lobosco is celebrated by the Italian TV audience as a great character-driven show.

A fearless woman is also the protagonist of Mina Settembre (12×50’). With more than 6 million viewers in Italy, Mina Settembre has been leading the TV scene in the past season. Mina is an ordinary woman with an exceptional bravery who is trying to put her life back on track. Recently separated, Mina is torn by her ex-husband and a new attractive co-worker. The series mixes the tones of drama with a bit of romance and a twist of mystery. It paints a fresco of Naples and the diversified and surprising humanity that populates it. The show has been already confirmed for a second season.

Director Alessandro D’Alatri (The Bastards of Pizzofalcone, 2018) takes to the screen another book series by Maurizio De Giovanni: Commissario Ricciardi (Il Commissario Ricciardi, 6×100’). Set in Naples in the 30s, the series mixes mystery and supernatural in the investigation of a police detective with a special “gift”: he can see the ghosts of murdered people and hear their last words.

Award-winning director Daniele Vicari and Emanuele Scaringi teamed up to direct  The Alligator (L’Alligatore, 8×50’). A unique mix of film noir and blues music. The series features the most famous and beloved character invented by controversial Italian novelist Massimo Carlotto. Like a noir anti-hero submerged into the underground atmosphere of illegal circles and dive blues clubs, Massimo Buratti aka The Alligator, is a former prisoner and blues singer who serves as an un-conventional private detective.

The iconic Commissario Montalbano with its last episode Il metodo Catalanotti (The Catalanotti Method) scored another record on Rai1’s prime time with 38.4% share and over 9 million viewers. After the deaths of novelist Andrea Camilleri and director Alberto Sironi, this latest successful movie has been directed by the protagonist actor Luca Zingaretti who is Salvo Montalbano in the fiction. This might be the very last unmissable episode which ends the Montalbano saga. The production company Palomar together with Rai Fiction will decide the destiny of this top selling TV show.

Crime thriller Standing Tall (Io ti cercherò, 8×50’) is a fast-paced TV series. Actor Alessandro Gassmann plays the role of Valerio, an ex-policeman determined to hunt for the truth behind his son’s assassination. The body of the young Ettore is found strewn along the banks of the Tiber River, a staged-suicide to cover up a murder. Dismissed from the service under murky circumstances, now Valerio is working at a small town gas station. In order to obtain justice, Valerio takes on a difficult path of redemption, which forces him to face his past, as a man as well as a father.

Rai’s romantic costume drama The Ladies’ Paradise (Il Paradiso delle Signore) continues with a new season of daily episodes, for a total of 5 seasons and 540 episodes of 50’ each. Set between the ‘50s and ‘70s the show brings back to life a revolutionary store in Milan where beauty and luxury are the polished background of a hostile environment.

Movies

Alessandro Grande debut’s feature is a coming of age drama. It portraits Regina: a 15 years old who dreams to become a singer. Her father Luigi supports her, expecially after the death of her mother. The two gets caught in a crescendo of anxiety and guilty feelings.

After the success on the big screens, Hidden Away (Volevo Nascondermi, 2020) comes to TVs. The movie that worth a Silver Bear for Best Actor to Elio Germano, for his unique performance of artist Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965) known for being the most famous outsider artist the country has ever seen.

With If Only (Magari) first-time director Ginevra Elkann put together a sentimental comedy a sentimental comedy about three kids of divorced parents. While living in Paris with their bourgeois Russian-Orthodox mother, they are suddenly packed off and sent to spend time with their unconventional and broke Italian father, Carlo.

Academy-Award winner director Gabriele Salvatores tells the story of a life-changing road trip of a wedding singer and his autistic son in All my crazy Love (Tutto il mio folle amore, 2019).

The movies line-up also features two bright and entertaining comedies: Divorce in Las Vegas and A son named Erasmus. In Divorce in Las Vegas (Divorzio a Las Vegas, 100’ – 2020) Giampaolo Morelli (best known for his role as Inspector Coliandro), reunites with his wife, whom he married during a nine-hour romantic love story in Las Vegas. In A son named Erasmus (Un figlio di nome Erasmus, 103’ – 2019) four friends in their forties receive shocking news from a woman they all loved in their twenties: a child conceived with one of them, but who is the father?

Documentaries

Director and Movie Critic Marco Spagnoli brings to the screen a documentary portrait of Federico Fellini in Fellini. I’m a Clown (Fellini. Io sono un clown, 50’). With unseen materials of the behind the scenes of the mockumentary “Director’s Block Notes” and “The Clown”, the documentary explores the artist in his new relationship with the Television emerging as a mass media at that time – and the importance of the image of clowns, that according to Fellini are “delusional drunken ambassadors of a vocation with no escape”: cinema.

On March 27^th, 2020, in an empty St Peter’s Square the Urbi et Orbi Blessing of Pope Francis resonated in the Vatican during the first lockdown. In Only Together (Solo Insieme, 50’) the Pope, who is widely recognized to be the People’s Pope, is told through the eyes of journalist Gualtiero Peirce, who had exclusive access to the Vatican Media Archive.

Academy-Award winner director Gabriele Salvatores is the People’s director. After his experiment Italy In A Day (2014) Salvatores goes back to the language of collective documentary with a report of Italy during the lockdown in It was spring outside (Fuori era Primavera, 75’).   The breathtaking empty Italian squares, the healthcare workers seen as real-life heroes, the mise-en-scene on the balconies: tons of home-made videos and mobile footage are put together. The result is an emotional documentary, with the unmatchable realism of the collective reportage filtered through the direction and vision of a great artist.

The documentary Bosnia Express (52’/70’) takes the viewer to a trip through the history that crossed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The documentary follows the railroad of the old Express 451, a train connecting Sarajevo to Belgrade at the time of Tito’s Yugoslavia. A journey that lasts until today, when a new profile of the country is still shaping off.

The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca as it has never been seen before in The Most Beautiful Painting in The World (La pittura più bella del mondo, 60’). The documentary is a journey inside a masterpiece which has fascinated intellectuals and artists for centuries.

Performing Arts

The Performing Art’s line-up this year features three unique operas. A unique event shot and streamed live from the Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, portaits a Salome as a victim of abuse. The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma brings on stage the Traviata. While the Teatro Comunale di Bologna performs the Adriana Lecouvreur.

Buyers can screen contents by requesting access to the branded digital library at https://www.videolibrary.raicom.rai.it/.

Rai Com’s sales team is available to schedule online appointments https://www.raicomvl.rai.it/contacts

Source：Rai