Rome's MIA Market Returns With New Format, Overlapping Rome Film Festival

Rome's MIA Market opens its 12th edition on Oct. 19 with a new format spread across several hotels on Via Veneto — the street made famous by "La Dolce Vita" — and, for the first time in years, overlapping with the Rome Film Festival.

MIA, which stands for Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo (International Audiovisual Market), will run Oct. 19-23 inside the Oct. 13-25 Rome fest. The market is dedicated to international TV series, animation, feature films and documentaries.

"We want the market to be more rooted in the city and Rome to become a major film and TV industry hub during this period," MIA chief Gaia Tridente tells Variety.

The first step in the collaboration gives buyers automatic accreditation to morning screenings at the Rome Film Fest and its Alice in the City sidebar, dedicated to films for children and youth. Those morning screenings are reserved for press and industry.

The guest roster has grown beyond the previously announced fireside chats with Banijay Entertainment CEO Marco Bassetti; Anna Marsh, CEO of Studiocanal and chief content officer of Canal+; Jane Tranter, CEO of Bad Wolf; and director Edward Berger, best known for "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Newly added onstage conversations and keynotes will feature Oscar-winning documentary director Asif Kapadia ("Amy"); fellow Brit Kim Longinotto, known for docs on female rebels and pioneers, including 2019's "Shooting the Mafia" about Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia; and Trevor Roth, COO and president of development at Roddenberry Entertainment, which is marking 60 years of the "Star Trek" franchise.

More than 100 projects, at various stages and hailing from 43 countries, will be on display. They include a sneak peek at Sky Italia's high-end Gucci family series "Gucci: Game Over," directed by Gabriele Muccino, and the drama "About Love & September Laws," the next feature by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani, whose 2023 debut "Goodbye Julia" made a splash in Cannes.

Documentary offerings include "Ducati 100 Years of a Legend," about the Italian motorcycle manufacturer, directed by Alex Infascelli and produced by Minerva Pictures Group. On the animation side, U.K. children's series "Barry Loser," based on Jim Smith's bestselling books and produced by Big Little Fish Television, joins the lineup through MIA's new Animation Series Gap Financing Market — a strand open to international animated projects already supported by broadcasters or commissioners and with significant financing in place.

Artificial intelligence takes center stage in the panel "Producing With AI: Augmentation or Replacement?" The session features Max Wiedemann, managing director and head of AI at France-based pan-European studio Mediawan, and Tom Paton, founder and CEO of AiMation, the company behind the AI Reality series "Non Player Combat."

A companion keynote from Al Munteanu, CEO of Munich- and London-based BriskPace Studios, will follow, examining the practical use of AI across the production value chain. U.S. entertainment lawyer Steve Saltzman, head of the International Entertainment Group at London-based law firm Fieldfisher, will moderate.

With its dates now synced to the festival, expanded Via Veneto footprint and a gap-financing strand for animation, MIA is positioning Rome as a single October destination for the European audiovisual industry.