MIA (Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo) has confirmed first speakers for this year’s event running October 9-13 in Rome. From a doc and unscripted perspective these include Sara Bernstein of Imagine Documentaries; award-winning docmaker and animator Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir) and James Townley, Chief Content Officer Development at Banijay.
Sara Bernstein is an award-winning producer and President of Imagine Documentaries – the production company founded by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. She leads the development and production of premium documentary feature films and series. Bernstein will give a keynote on her career with special reference to recent productions like Judy Blume Forever (Amazon Studios), Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman (Disney+) and The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari (Netflix). During her career Bernstein has garnered 11 Emmy wins, 33 Emmy nominations and 11 Peabody Awards, and the documentary features she has supervised have garnered two Oscars and 13 Oscar nominations.
Also in the frame will be Ari Folman, award-winning screenwriter, director, producer and animator, known for the animated documentary Waltz With Bashir (Golden Globe award for best foreign language film in 2009), The Congressand Where Is Anne Frank.
James Townley, Chief Content Officer Development at Banijay, will give a keynote on the development and creation of unscripted IP and the acquisition of formats and documentaries in the 21 countries around the world where the group has a presence. Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks along with the full program of the market.
Organisers underline that MIA, directed by Gaia Tridente and focused on co-production, financing strategies and models, sales and distribution, works-in-progress, nurturing talent and project circulation, is “the most important industry event in Italy and one of the must-attend international marketplaces.”
Core to proceedings in Rome is the Doc Co-production Market & Pitching Forum. “We believe that if you come to Italy, you should find something that you usually don’t get to find in the other markets,” Marco Spagnoli, Deputy Director, Head of Doc & Factual told Business Doc Europe in 2022. “And Italians are doing very good things in documentaries. There are many opportunities to produce, to make documentaries here. Something is happening.”
