Record business for the tenth year of the IBF – International Book Forum, the International Book Fair’s business area dedicated to the trade in publishing rights for the translation and cinema and television adaptations. Again in 2011 the IBF – held this year in Pavilion 5 of Lingotto Fiere – confirming its role as a fundamental date in the diaries of rights manager from all around the world, who arrived in Turin to meet up, identify new contacts and do business.

6,900 meetings were held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Over 700 trade professionals arrived, 90 of whom invited in collaboration with the Istituto nazionale per il Commercio Estero (ICE – national foreign trade institute), from over 30 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Romania, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Among them were literary agents, rights managers, producers and publishing scouts for cinema, television and multimedia who bustled at the 170 desks set up in Pavilion 5.

More than 100 publishing projects were presented at the TFL Window, the publishing scouting desk activated in the three days of the event to discover new “film stories” in collaboration with TorinoFilmLab. In a few days the title of the book that will be included in Script&Pitch, one of the development projects created by TorinoFilmLab to transform stories on paper into products for the big screen, will be announced. In addition, thanks to a partnership signed with Industry Books of the International Film Festival of Rome, another 20 projects, chosen from the titles proposed by English and Italian publishers in the three days of the IBF, will be subjected in July to the judgment of a jury nominated by the Cinema Foundation for Rome. The 10 finalist books, chosen by the jury, will be presented to national and international producers and distributors on a special day during the event in Rome on 27 October 2011.

Once again there were numerous publishers accredited at IBF 2011. Among those present were the British Faber & Faber and Serpent’s Tail, the German Piper Verlag, the American Waterside Production, the Spanish Random House and the French Editions Fayard. Many deals were completed: the most keenly requested book was Il Divoratore by Lorenza Ghinelli, published by Newton Compton, for which the translation rights were sold to France, Spain, Brazil, Serbia, Russia, Portugal and Holland. Negotiations have been initiated well with the United States, Turkey, Germany and Croatia. Arlinda Dudaj, the owner of the publishing house Dudaj Publishing (Albania), bought the rights to the translation of Geronimo Stilton and Per sempre, the latest novel by Susanna Tamaro published by Giunti, and has also begun negotiations for the rights of numerous works by Oriana Fallaci. On the side of the literary agencies, the Clementina Liuzzi Literary Agency sold the rights of the author Massimo Carlotto to as many as 16 foreign publishers, those of Viola di Grado to 6 and those of Elena Ferrante to 12.

The IBF is a winning formula, above all for making the best of Italian publishing, confirmed by the positive opinion of many professionals present. “I am very bonded to the Italian publishing market” said Pilar Beltran, of the Spanish publisher Grup62. “It is more original and of higher quality than the European average. It is also much more productive to come to Turin. At other events, such as London and Frankfurt, it is in fact harder to do business, having to maintain relations with people from many European countries. At the IBF, instead, I was able to dedicate myself entirely to publishers and Italian agencies and build more profitable relations”.

The trade professionals also participated in mass in the programme of meetings and debates reserved for those accredited for the IBF: Question time: publishing rights in the internet era, with the lawyer Giorgio Spedicato, teacher of intellectual property rights at the Law Faculty of the University of Bologna; Marketplace for digital publishing: the new business frontiers, a focus on the role of publishers in the ebook age, with Raffaello Avanzini of Newton Compton Editori, Marco Ghezzi of Bookrepulic and the journalist of La Stampa Bruno Ruffilli; Hybrid TV and new content "drives". New channels, new modes of use and new contents, with Gabriele Gresta of Digital Magics, Leonardo Chiariglione of Wimtv.it and Piero Gaffuri of Rainet. In addition, like every year, the accredited participants had the IBF Lounge available: more than 1,500 meals were served by Valsesiain to Italian and foreign guests during the 3 days of the event. Pausa Cafè also contributed, serving more than 2,000 coffees in the moments of relaxation between one appointment and the next.

The International Book Forum is an International Book Fair initiative, organised by Biella Intraprendere thanks to the organisational and financial support Istituto nazionale per il Commercio Estero (ICE – international foreign trade institute) and the funding of Regione Piemonte, in the framework of the Regione Piemonte – ICE agreement and the programme agreement with the Ministry for Economic Development.