Francesca Manno
Summerside Media is an Italian based film production and world sales company with operative offices in Rome and Lecce (Puglia). Well renown in the independent panorama, the company handles a wide range of speciality titles – scripted and unscripted - from around the world, such as director-driven features, genre movies, family/fantasy/teens films, rom-coms, dramas and a peculiar slate of documentaries including biopics, art; music; current affairs; green documentaries, regularly selected in worldwide festivals. "Summerside Media deals directly with broadcasters, aggregators, over-the-top (OTT) TV, VOD platforms, SVOD players, as well as airlines, libraries, museums, festivals, showcasing the most recent acquisitions, and the library contents of the world cinematography," asserted Francesca Manno, Managing Director of Summerside Media to Señal News.
The Italian company will be bringing several new titles to the upcoming MIPDOC where they will be available on MIPDOC Screenings Library, which is available online and onsite at MIPTV. The one on top of our lineup is "The Era of Giants" directed by Davide Barletti and Lorenzo Conte, produced by Dinamo Film and Fluid Video Produzioni. "It's a documentary on Xylella, an infective bacterial disease of plants, transmitted by insects to host plants causing leaf scorch, wilt, die-back that lead to plant death. In Puglia, the Xylella Fastidiosa is killing millions of olive trees, disrupting the landscape, the economy and human relations. There is still no cure for this attack, and the epidemic is advancing northwards, threatening the agricultural territories of the European Union and the Mediterranean basin", described the executive.
Summerside Media tents to awareness also among TV programmers and acquisitions executives, as the general audience has to know Xylella is not only an Italian problem. "Xylella has already been detected in other territories in Europe, on ornamental plants, besides olive trees, and native Mediterranean plants in urban and natural environments." she affirmed. "The documentary is not just an investigation into the past and present of this botanical epidemic, but it also aims at offering a glimpse into the future, into local activities that are trying to regenerate a territory and on those that are experiencing a new relationship with the earth, addressing issues of global importance such as climate change. Therefore, we believe that it is not just a local perspective-driven story but a universal one and as such it deserves to be showcased globally," she explained.
The other title Summerside Media has in their doc slate is "The Last Playboy" by Mauro Russo Rouge ("Bloom Up") final chapter of a trilogy on sexuality and eroticism, starring a 70 years old man who recounts his life as a playboy and Latin lover.
MOVIE SLATE
Going to the movies slate, the company features "Broken Promises" third movie of the trilogy "Long Flat Balls" directed and produced by Harald Zwart ("Karate Kid") a successful Scandinavian comedy and road movie starring Don Johnson and Samantha Fox.
The Summerside Media family editorial line is enriched of "Lobis. Unknown Treasures" a Lithuanian fantasy film based on the script of the same name writer Renata Šerelytė and director Agnė Marcinkevičiūtė. In the story full of adventures, a group of children on vacation at their grandparents’ house discover a treasure map. When the biggest secret is revealed, something magical happens and the grandparents mysteriously disappear. "Full of adventures, unforgettable experiences, breathtaking dangers and mysteries, the film 'Unknown Treasures' will help everyone understand that real treasures are not hidden deep underground, but are hidden in each of our hearts, you just need to know how to find them" said Manno.
PRODUCING AND ACQUISITIONS STRATEGIES
"Our beacon in every daily choice we make is to find good stories that deserve to be promoted worldwide. We study and scout every day and commit ourselves to work only on quality projects that may have a good impact on the audience, raising awareness – above all - among the new generations", outlined Manno. "In our small cosmo– a small team thinking big! – we are very aware of the need for society to conserve resources, to protect natural ecosystems, to minimize pollution and to promote social equity, so I would say that sustainability is now our main goal", she commented.
Talking about business strategies, "we’ll look more for serial contents, documentaries, educational projects, family and young adults oriented contents and good independent stories narrated with a very special taste." she concluded.