FILMFESTIVALS.COM EXPANDS INTO ITALY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 35mm.IT

Move Follows Growth in UK and France

LOS ANGELES DEC. 18, 2000

FilmFestivals.com, the world's largest film festival server, which opened a U.K. operation in October based in London, has further expanded its operations with a new Italian site in partnership with 35mm.IT, a subsidiary of Italy's Mediaset and the established Italian portal site for film news and industry events, it is announced by Bruno Chatelin, FilmFestivals.com COO, and Davide Dellacasa, publisher of 35mm.IT.
The new site, which combines the resources of both companies providing a network of 50 correspondents covering the world's film festivals, will increase Italian film and film festival coverage, as well as adding Italian short films and features to the new FilmFestivalsTV video-on-demand channel which is operated by Filmfestivals.com.

35mm.IT soft-launched its new fully redesigned version at the Venice Film Festival and the new version, presented at Smau in Milan, offers a full range of information and services for moviegoers. The site will work closely with the organizers of the approximately 100 film festivals in Italy every year, as well as expanding contacts with screenwriters and filmmakers. Stated Bruno Chatelin: "Davide and I share the same web vision and cinema passion. I have a strong belief in the development potential of the Italian web market. The net growth and our efforts should result in a powerful boost to the film community, with a new series of promotion tools for filmmakers and festivals.

"The Italian site includes editorial, opportunities for partnerships with Italian distributors, web deals, and content for consumers. It is a logical step in our strategy to expand and form alliances in the major territories." Stated Davide Dellacasa: "The deal with a company like Filmfestivals.com is an important step for our international development. I'm very happy to have found in Bruno someone willing to build with us better web projects both for the industry and for the public." Filmfestivals.com Moves Into Italy: Page 2 FilmFestivals.com, which is headquartered in Paris, with offices in New York, recently opened a London office in October headed by Nic Wistreich and Tom Fogg, joint-founders of Netribution.co.uk.

FilmFestivals.com was founded by Malo Girod de l'Ain, President, in 1995 when it created the first website for the Cannes International Film Festival. The site now lists more than 1,500 film festivals worldwide, and has extensive online tools to help festival organizers in such areas as marketing, film registration, web presence and ticket sales. During this year's Cannes Festival, daily news bulletins were sent by WAP to attendees' mobile phones. FilmFestivalsTV was launched at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

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