Italian productions from the documentary sector will be on show in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France. Among the attendees will be Rai Trade, the main Italian documentary distributor, as well as other Italian companies from the sector with works that range from documentaries uncovering the most remote areas of the world to those using recent technological breakthroughs for cross-media products. Projects will also be presented with the aim of establishing international documentary co-productions.

This will all take place from June 26 to 29 at the “Sunny Side of the Doc” fair , one of the most important events in the sector, now in its twenty-third year.

With just one glance workers and visitors to the fair will have an overview of Italian documentary production, which is noted for its originality and for the quality of its content and directing.

There will be plenty of opportunities for comparison and business deals with companies from the sector in other countries, and with agents visiting the fair with the objective of forming important and long-lasting relationships.

The starting point is promising, given that Italian documentary is highly regarded abroad, especially in Europe, and is an effective vehicle for promoting the Made in Italy concept in general (tourism, fashion, culture, art etc.).

Italian companies aim to come out best in the comparison against foreign competitors in terms of quality: for that reason they will present their best, most innovative products to evoke an emotional response, inspire wonder and use it all to create new commercial synergies.

The market that will be most keenly observed will of course be that of the French “hosts”, but not exclusively: the potential easily extends to the whole European market.

The gauntlet, then, has been thrown down and the goal is to exceed the number of visitors from last year in order to increase business opportunities: in 2011, 455 exhibitors attended from 63 countries with 1,743 participants attending the event (of which 290 were commissioning editors and international buyers), so this is a good base to start from to achieve even more.