Rai Trade, the sales arm of Italian pubcaster Rai, is scoring biz on “Darker Than Midnight” the Sicily-set transgender drama by first-timer Sebastiano Riso, which screened in the Cannes Critics’ Week, Variety reported.
Produced by Rome shingle IdeaCinema in association with Rai Cinema, the pic about the traumatic adolescence of drag queen Fuxia, who achieved fame on the Roman stage after a break with family and being adopted by gay and trans street people, has been sold to Germany (Salzgeber), Australia (Palace) and Poland. Rai Trade is also in advanced talks for France, the UK, the US and Latin America.
Rai Trade also announced it is negotiating a U.S. deal on Italo first-timer Pierfrancesco Diliberto’s Mafia themed non-conventional comedy “The Mafia Kills Only in Summer,” a hit in Italy after scoring a prize at the Turin fest in November 2013.