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Italian media company Be Water, which is in Cannes for the first time, has announced its full roster of partners and scope of business activities comprising film, documentary and scripted TV production as well as theatrical film distribution, podcasts and live events.

While details of the company’s scripted productions are being kept under wraps, Be Water has announced the lineup of films they are releasing locally theatrically in collaboration with Italy’s Medusa, which is handling booking and billing. Besides “Oh, Canada,” the Be Water lineup includes Nicolas Cage horror-thriller “Longlegs,” directed by Osgood Perkin; Russian-American director Michael Lockshin’s “The Master and Margarita” with Claes Bang and August Diehl; and action family adventure “Jim Button and the Wild 13.”

The Rome-based shingle is operating with what is being described as a holistic approach to content production that is congenial to the digital age, which is certainly a novelty for Italy.

Fremantle-owned Italian production company Wildside has signed a first-look deal with trader-turned-writer Guido Brera, whose financial thriller “Devils” spawned the Sky series of the same title that recently launched at Mipcom sold by NBCUniversal Global Distribution.

Brera worked as a trader in London before relocating to his native Italy, where he currently divides his time between finances and fiction. He debuted as a writer in 2014 with “I Diavoli,” which reconstructs the dynamics of Europe’s 2008 debt crisis through the tale of a charismatic Italian broker of a London investment bank who enters into conflict with the firm’s American CEO.

That thriller, a local bestseller that will soon be out in English, was followed in 2017 by a book about the impact of Europe’s debt crisis on political developments such as Trump’s election and Brexit. The sequel was published by now-prominent Italian imprint La Nave di Teseo, which Brera co-founded in 2015.

Wildside,...

Comcast-owned Sky Studios and Italy’s Lux Vide launched financial thriller “Devils” on Monday at Mipcom in Cannes, where NBCUniversal Global Distribution has already closed sales deals with several undisclosed territories.

“Devils” reconstructs the dynamics that prompted the debt crisis that threatened to unravel the many European countries that use the euro as their currency. The show delves into the world of financial traders in London, Frankfurt and Milan, based on a book that will soon be out in English by Italian trader Guido Brera, who worked for Morgan Stanley in London.

The 10-episode skein starring Patrick Dempsey (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and Alessandro Borghi (“Suburra”) is directed by Nick Hurran (“Altered Carbon“) and Jan Michelini (“Medici“) and produced by Sky and Lux Vide, in association with France’s Orange Studio.

The €25 million ($27.5 million) series is the first project that the Sky entity then known as Sky Vision, headed by Gary Davey,...

London and Rome-based production company Blackbox Multimedia, recently co-founded by former Lionsgate COO Guy Avshalom with Italy’s Guido Brera and Roberta Cardarelli, is developing a slate of high-end skeins for the international market comprising “The Last Cop,” on which they’ve partnered with Keshet International, and also “Murder in Time,” based on a series of thrillers by U.S. writer Julie McElwain.

McElwain’s three “Murder in Time” books, published by Pegasus, revolve around tough FBI agent Kendra Donovan who goes rogue in London in an effort to assassinate the man who killed her team, only to end up in England in the 1800s. Up-and-coming British screenwriter Amanda Duke has written the series bible for this time-travel crime thriller that encapsulates “what Blackbox is trying to do,” says the company’s Head of Development Chiara Cardoso.

Concurrently, the company has also commissioned Spain’s Sergio Barrejon, who served as writer...