Rome’s MIA Market Wraps Strong Edition With ‘The Abbess’ From Britain’s Warp Films Taking Drama Project Prize

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome’s MIA, a market dedicated to international TV series, feature films, animation and documentaries, wrapped its eighth edition on Saturday on a positive note boasting a 20% rise in attendance compared with 2021, having attracted more than 2,400 registered industry execs from 60 countries, more than half of which from Italy.

However, the pandemic was still limiting travel last year, which makes comparisons difficult. The mood was undoubtedly upbeat in the halls and terraces of central Rome’s Palazzo Barberini – which besides being Italy’s national ancient art gallery is also the market’s main hub – and in the adjacent state-of-the-art Cinema Barberini movie theater during five days of curated dealmaking and dozens of panels and project pitching sessions involving 70 TV, film, doc and animation projects.

The winner of this year’s Paramount + prize awarded by a jury of experts to the best project at the MIA Drama Pitching Forum is “The Abbess,” billed as a wickedly funny drama about a Machiavellian power-struggle in a closed-order of nuns.

The show is being shepherded by the U.K.’s Warp Films, known for recent Prime Video musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” and memorable BAFTA-winning series “This Is England.” “The Abbess,” which is inspired by the novel “The Abbess of Crewe” by Scottish writer Muriel Spark, was pitched in Rome as “‘Veep’ meets ‘Succession’ on the set of “The Sound of Music.'” MIA’s new ArteKino International Prize to support emerging international directors was scooped by “Forastera,” a first work by Lucia Alenar Iglesias, a Spanish film director who has been studying and working in the U.S. “Forastera,” which is produced by Spain’s Lastor Media,