New Wildside Boss Sonia Rovai Details The ‘My Brilliant Friend’ Outfit’s Drive To Find The Next Generation Of Italian Auteurs
EXCLUSIVE: The new boss of My Brilliant Friend producer Wildside is on a mission to discover the next generation of Italian talent.
Detailing the Fremantle-backed producer’s strategy for the first time since taking over, Sonia Rovai said she will not depart from the genres that the Italian outfit specializes in but will instead attempt to shift the dial by unearthing young scribes and directors.
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Rovai said she is slowly building up a development slate featuring these voices, with projects that she will likely produce herself.
“We need to push to find the Italian next generation,” she told Deadline at the AVPSummit in south Italy. “So we are selecting and working on new voices and young talent.”
Rovai is “investing time” in the endeavor, she said, visiting local theaters and reaching out to those who may have left Italy to find work in nations like the UK. “To find a way to give them a voice is a challenge that I would like to achieve,” she added. “It gives you a reason to do this job, to discover new voices that have to be discovered. Otherwise I don’t know who will be our future in 20 years.”
Former Sky Italia exec Rovai took over earlier this year, replacing Mario Gianani, who formed a new co-production deal with Fremantle alongside ex-The Apartment boss Lorenzo Mieli. The company’s credits include the likes of HBO’s My Brilliant Friend, Disney+’s The Good Mothers and Cannes jury prize winner The Eight Mountains.
Since taking over, Rovai has overseen a deal struck with Sony Pictures International Productions for local movies, with Alessandro Genovesi’s Upside Down Family set as debut project.
She revealed the team is developing its next pic from the pact with a view to shooting next year and said Sony’s ambition is for a “library of international movies produced with an Italian angle.” She was speaking to Deadline on the day that Wayne Garvie, who runs production for Sony Pictures Television outside the U.S., said Italian producers are “not brave enough,” as he urged execs to be “creative entrepreneurs.”
Wildside has developed strong relationships with production houses outside of Italy and is also working on Audrey Diwan’s Marriage Portrait with Element Pictures and handling production services for Sky’s Neil Cross thriller Iris.
With a rich heritage of adapting novels such as some of Elena Ferrante’s best works, Rovai said Wildside is trying to “differentiate ourselves” in the book market, leaning on the expertise of Fremantle literary guru Raffaella De Angelis.
In the spotlight at AVPSummit was a string of iconic Italian novels that are being turned into big budget TV series with English-language partners attached, such as Netflix double The Decameron and The Leopard.
But Rovai said this is not controversial and some projects require this treatment in order to obtain funding. “If you want to do shows with a U.S. partner then 90% of the time you need them in the English language because it has to be sold everywhere and be universal,” she added. “Squid Game is an exception, but we would like to find those exceptions. The mistake is doing something that has no real soul because you have tried to make it European but it wants to be American.”
Double standards on period drama
Italian commissioners, meanwhile, are leaning local and contemporary and away from period, she explained, with ideas needing to be “grounded, close to the culture in which you live and with recognizable casting.”
On the move away from period, she countered: “Commissioners will say they don’t want period but if you speak to them about IP and explain [an idea is] period they remain fascinated because at the end of the day period is the history of Italy.”
The market may be tougher with less money available but she praised commissioners’ clarity of vision and willingness to be flexible on rights.
“Two to three years ago there was this big boost and an appetite for everything,” she added. “Now [commissioners] are very clear. Someone will ask for procedural, others for comedy, and others will be very specific on cast. All of them have less money than before so the requests are around how to optimize the production.”
With this in mind, Rovai said Wildside is in early development with a streamer on a series for which the platform is being flexible on rights in certain territories, meaning “if the story is good, we can sell it later,” she explained.
“They are more open on rights and windowing, so this is a way in which you can build up a production model.”
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