Michele Mally’s Munch: Love, Phantoms and Lady Vampires
Nexo Digital, whose slogan is ‘entertain Your brain,’ is continuing to do brisk business on its huge slate of art, culture and history documentaries on subjects like Modigliani, Anne Frank and the last days of Pompeii.
Veronique Commelin, Head of Sales at the Milan-based sales and distribution outfit, is reporting “positive” results from last week’s IDFA Docs for Sale. During the festival, Nexo has also been scouting the market for the new VOD platform Nexo is about to launch in Italy.
The company is known for its expertise in event releasing in cinemas globally. However, Nexo is becoming increasingly prolific in production.
“Since 2015, we have developed our activity in the international market by co-producing,” Commelin explained of Nexo’s increasing involvement in high-end art and culture documentaries.
Among recent successes is #Anne Frank. Parallel Stories, directed by Sabina Fadeli and Anna Migotto, and narrated by Helen Mirren. In the film, made to mark the 90th birthday of Anne Frank, Mirren retraces the young Dutch Jewish girl’s life through both the pages of her diary and the lives of five woman who, as teenage girls, were also deported to concentration camps but escaped the Holocaust.
Made together with 3D Produzioni in collaboration with the Anne Frank Fonds (Swiss fund), the Anne Frank doc was released in the UK earlier this year by CinEvents. The film has also sold to Netflix.
One tactic Nexo often pursues is to find big name actors to narrate its docs. For example, Valeria Parisi’s recent film The Prado Museum. A Collection of Wonders, marking the 200th anniversary of the legendary Madrid museum, featured British actor Jeremy irons. Meanwhile, Giuseppe Domingo Romano’s Tintoretto: A Rebel in Venice featured both Helena Bonham Carter and Peter Greenaway while the company’s Frida Kahlo doc, Frida. Viva la Vida, directed by Giovanni Troilo, featured Asia Argento.
During IDFA, Nexo has been showing buyers Corsicato Pappi’s Pompeii. Sin City, billed as a “cinematic doc on one of the world’s most mysterious archaeological places.” Isabella Rossellini guides the audience through “secrets, masterpieces and stories that range between Myth, Eros and portraits of life.”
Alongside the feature docs, Nexo also sells selected spot titles aimed at broadcasters. These include films like Emanuela Audisio’s Pele – The Last Show, which tells the story of the legendary Brazilian footballer through the eyes of those who know him, and Audisio’s 1968 Sport and Revolution, which looks at how the Mexico 1968 Olympics brought political awareness into sport.
On the movie lover side, Nexo has been selling Anselma Dell’Olio’s new feature documentary Fellini Of The Spirits, made to mark the 100th anniversary of Italian cinema maestro Federico Fellini’s birth in 1920.
New projects for late 2020 and early 2021 include Michele Mally’s Munch: Love, Phantoms and Lady Vampires which explores the legacy of tortured Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, whose work has influenced everyone from Ingmar Bergman to Andy Warhol.
Also new on the Nexo slate is Massimo Ferrari’s Raphael, The Young Prodigy. Produced by Sky Italia, this is a celebration of Renaissance master Raphael (1483-1520), made to mark the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death.
Another recent Nexo art title is Marco Pianigiani’s Botticelli, Florence And The Medici, narrated by Stephen Mangan. This was made by Nexo together with Sky Arts and Ballandi Arts.
Commelin acknowledged that COVID has delayed releases on certain Nexo titles but that production has carried on more on less on schedule. After IDFA, Ventana Sur will be the next step on the company’s whistle stop global tour of virtual markets.
