Venice: True Colours Takes Sales on Venice and Toronto Titles (EXCLUSIVE)

By Nick Vivarelli

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Italian sales company True Colours has taken world sales on a trio of Venice films, and Toronto title “The Vice of Hope,” by Edoardo De Angelis, whose “Indivisible” made an international splash.

New Venice pics on the slate include Horizons entry “If Life Gives You Lemons,” by Italian first-timer Ciro D’Emilio. Pic is about a 17 year old who dreams of playing in the country’s Serie-A soccer league. The movie has been praised by Venice fest artistic director Alberto Barbara as an unexpected gem. The others on the True Colous slate are suicide-themed comedy “Emma Peeters,” a sophomore work by by Belgium’s Nicole Palo (“Get Born”), which will close the Venice Days section; and Pippo Mezzapesa’s “My Own Good,” also in Venice Days, starring veteran Italian actor Sergio Rubini as the last inhabitant of a ghost town in southern Italy’s Apulia region.

“Emma,” which stars Canada’s Monia Chokri (“The Imaginary Loves”) as a down-and-out actress in the throes of an existential crisis, reflects True Colours’ strategy of venturing beyond Italian cinema, which makes up the bulk of the company’s product. True Colours was launched in 2016 by Rome-based companies Indigo Film and Lucky Red to boost the Italian film and TV industries and put the country back on the global content market map.

“Vice of Hope,” which will world premiere in Toronto’s World Cinema section, stars Pina Turco (“Gomorrah”) as a woman who works with child traffickers in Castel Volturno, an area outside Naples known for being the most lawless area in Italy. It’s similar in tone to “Indivisible,” De Angelis’ pic about Neapolitan teenage conjoined-twin sisters with beautiful voices, a film that traveled widely after launching from Venice Days in 2016.