Rome – RAI Com, the sales arm of Italian pubcaster RAI, will head to Cannes with a full range of content from crime and drama to animation and opera. After the great international sales success of the first season of the crime series Close Murders (Non Uccidere, 12×100’) about a female crime fighter, Valeria Ferro of the Turin Homicide Squad, in her battle against domestic and community-based violence, RAI Com is starting pre-sales for the eagerly awaited second season at MIPCOM this year.

Another brand-new production is the series The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (I Bastardi Di Pizzofalcone, 6×100’) about the intertwined lives of five new hires to the notoriously corrupt police department of a small town near Naples.

The two latest episodes of Detective Montalbano (Il Commissario Montalbano, 28×100’), the multi-season phenomenon starring Luca Zingaretti, will also be eagerly awaited at MIPCOM. Among the lighter fare on offer, there is The Ladies’ Paradise (Il Paradiso Delle Signore), a drama (20 x 50’) set in the 1950s economic miracle about an eponymous revolutionary store in Milan where beauty and luxury are within everyone’s grasp.

RAI Com’s commitment to developing first-rate kids and animation content bears fruit in Pio Rocks!, 52 shows aimed at 5-8 digital natives based on the runaway success of internet phenomenon Pulcino Pio. RAI Com’s feature film titles come with a high pedigree. Both Gabriele Muccino’s Summertime (L’estate A Dosso, 98’), with a hit soundtrack by Italian rap star Jovanotti) and Giuseppe Piccioni’s These Days (Questi Giorni, 90’) arrive fresh from the Venice Film Festival. Toni Servillo (The Great Beauty) stars in Francesco Amato’s drama Let Yourself Go! (Lasciati Andare, 90’).

Last, not least, RAI Com also expands its offering in high-culture content with a number of new opera productions from Italy’s most prestigious stages. New on the MIPCOM sales slate is Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Verdi’s La Traviata in state-of-the-art productions.