Interview with Gaia Tridente – Director of MIA |Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo, Rome

MIA – Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo in Rome – promoted by ANICA (National Association of Cinematographic, Audiovisual and Digital Industries), chaired by Alessandro Usai, and APA (Audiovisual Producers Association), chaired by Chiara Sbarigia, and directed by Gaia Tridente – has become one of Europe’s leading hubs for networking, co-production, and the development of audiovisual content on a global scale.

Every year, in the unique setting of Palazzo Barberini and Cinema Barberini, MIA brings together producers, distributors, broadcasters, platforms, and talent, fostering concrete opportunities for collaboration and opening new perspectives for the industry.

With high-profile professional programs such as Co-Production Market and Shoot the Book, MIA has established itself as a true bridge between Italy and international markets, encouraging strategic relationships worldwide.

With Gaia Tridente, we explore strategies, prospects, and the challenges facing Italy in an increasingly competitive market.

In just a few years, MIA has established itself as one of the most dynamic markets in Europe. What sets MIA apart from other international events such as Cannes or Berlin?

Gaia Tridente: The 11th edition will take place in Rome from October 6 to 10, 2025, with five days of pitching forums, showcases, conferences, and meetings aimed at strengthening relationships among industry professionals and promoting new collaboration agreements.

2025 marks an important milestone for the Rome-based market, which celebrates its 11th edition while tackling new strategic challenges: reinforcing MIA’s role as an international hub for production and co-production, revitalizing the market for finished content sales, and further boosting the scouting and promotion of original works-in-progress ready for commercialization and distribution. Building on these key assets, MIA has designed a program of targeted activities to foster the development, financing, circulation, and sales of works across all formats and genres, while promoting the talents behind each project.

MIA has quickly become one of Europe’s most dynamic markets because it was founded with a clear mission: to serve as a true bridge between Italy and the international industry.

Compared to events like Cannes or Berlin, which have a much longer tradition and a larger scale, MIA stands out for its agility and specialization. It is a curated, “tailor-made” market with a strong focus on content and high-quality networking, designed to bring together producers, broadcasters, platforms, buyers, distributors, and talent in a highly professional yet accessible environment.

Another distinctive feature is its ability to work across all segments of the audiovisual industry—from film to drama series, from animation to documentary, up to the new market program dedicated to literary adaptations (Book Adaptation Forum and Shoot the Book). This cross-sector approach creates synergies that larger, more vertical markets do not always offer.

Finally, Rome and Italy themselves are an added value: hosting a market here also means offering international guests direct contact with a production system that is growing rapidly and increasingly open to global collaborations.

What initiatives have you introduced to make MIA not just a meeting place, but also an accelerator for projects that actually move into production?

Gaia Tridente: Over the years, MIA has established itself not only as a meeting place but also as a true accelerator for projects that effectively reach production. Since 2015, more than 100 works presented at our Co-Production Market & Pitching Forum have secured partners and gone into production, including 55 films, 14 series, 29 documentaries, and several animation projects produced through 2024. In the latest edition alone, we received more than 500 submissions from 81 countries for the Co-Production Market, with 62 projects selected for the official pitch sessions—further confirming MIA’s role as an international development platform.

In addition, programs such as Apollo Series (a training initiative created and run by Series Mania Institute in collaboration with MIA and TV Drama Vision at the Göteborg Film Festival), Shoot the Book, and the Book Adaptation Forum strengthen the value chain and provide authors with concrete tools to accelerate the journey from ideas to production.

This demonstrates that MIA does more than stimulate networking: it acts as a real catalyst for the creation of new works destined for the global market.

The United States remains a crucial partner for the Italian industry. What positive signs of collaboration with American producers have you observed in recent editions of MIA?

Gaia Tridente: In recent years, we have seen very encouraging signals of collaboration with the United States, which continues to be a crucial partner for the Italian audiovisual industry. Each year at MIA, several U.S. studios and platforms take part actively in panels and pitching sessions, showing a growing interest in European and Italian content, particularly in the fields of drama and international documentary. This dialogue is further consolidated in the 2025 edition of MIA: one example is the Industry Insider Bootcamp, an “open mic” workshop with Charles Ferraro, Partner and Agent at United Talent Agency (UTA), which offers European producers direct access to one of Hollywood’s most influential agencies.

We are also seeing tangible signals in the animation sector: among the featured speakers are leading global figures such as Maura Regan (Licensing International, USA) and Cirocco Dunlap, a U.S. showrunner and creator, both of whom will headline two sessions dedicated to the language of animation, addressing topics such as storytelling and licensing.

Other top U.S. players attending MIA include Abe Coelho, Agent in the Media Finance department at CAA, one of Hollywood’s most influential agencies; Tesha Crawford, Executive Vice President of International Television at New Regency, a company with strong U.S. roots; Alex Brunner, Partner and Agent at UTA; Rob Williams, with over 20 years of international experience in distribution, acquisition, and sales of films and series, who spent many years as Senior VP at Participant, overseeing Academy Award–winning titles such as Green Book, Roma, and American Factory, and who has more recently collaborated with NEON as a strategic content consultant; and Katherine Pope, President of Sony Pictures Television, returning to MIA with new projects and an active presence in the market.

The participation of these U.S. players brings to MIA a direct perspective on approaches to packaging, financing, and distributing international projects, confirming the concrete interest and commitment of the American industry in engaging with Italian and European producers.

These elements demonstrate that MIA not only attracts U.S. counterparts but also actively involves them in a structured dialogue, resulting in concrete opportunities for co-production and joint development—thereby strengthening the international reach of Italian and European audiovisual production.

Which Italian genres or formats have the greatest potential to align with the tastes and demands of the U.S. market today?

Gaia Tridente: Today, the Italian genres with the greatest potential for the U.S. market are those that combine a strong local identity with universal appeal—and we already have very concrete examples that prove this.

The series My Brilliant Friend, co-produced by Rai, Fandango, and HBO, is a landmark case of how a deeply Italian story can find a global audience, thanks to a narrative rooted in our culture yet capable of speaking universally. Similarly, Hotel Costiera, the new Amazon Studios series produced by Amazon MGM Studios in collaboration with Lux Vide and Fremantle, directed by American filmmaker Adam Bernstein (Fargo) together with Giacomo Martelli, and starring U.S. actor Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy, Only Murders in the Building), shows how Italy continues to be attractive as a setting, as a creative hub, and as an industrial partner for major American platforms.

On top of this, Italy’s role as a premium location is undeniable: series such as The White Lotus (shot in Sicily), Ripley, and Emily in Paris demonstrate how Italian settings can become an integral part of storytelling and a strategic asset for global distribution.

Today, the boundaries between audiovisual, gaming, and other forms of entertainment are increasingly blurred, with AI accelerating their integration. Do you envision a future in which MIA could also become a hub for these converging industries?

Gaia Tridente: MIA is already a hub that welcomes hybrid forms of production and engages with creative industries closely connected to audiovisual. In recent years, we have integrated into the program sections dedicated to XR, animation, gaming, and artificial intelligence, precisely to capture the new trajectories of international production.

The boundary between audiovisual and other entertainment sectors is increasingly permeable: AI is accelerating this convergence, opening up opportunities in terms of narrative development, production workflows, and business models. In this sense, MIA does not simply observe trends but actively incorporates them into its ecosystem, creating spaces where producers, creatives, and technology players can share experiences and develop joint projects.

Looking ahead, we see MIA further strengthening this vocation, becoming a reference point not only for film and series, but for the entire cross-media and transmedia content value chain—from audiovisual to gaming, through to new immersive and interactive forms.