Chiara Sbarigia is the new President of the Audiovisual Producers Association, the first woman in thirty years elected to lead the APA.

In her speech, Chiara Sbarigia recalled the nine Presidents who preceded her and with whom she has worked fruitfully side by side over the years, and presented her programme report. Among the main objectives was first and foremost the need to recover a strong representative function, establishing a constant dialogue, also with formal appointments, with the government, with all the category associations, and with industrial and workers’ counterparts, to ensure due attention to a sector that has always been a guarantee of independence and industrial and creative pluralism, also for the benefit of spectators.

“The profound transformations that have swept through the audiovisual world, including the digital revolution, which has had a major impact on the global industry, requires on our part an effort to stay up to date in order to keep up with the times” said the newly appointed President Sbarigia. “We will broaden the scope of sector research, also deepening it at an international level, in order to have useful tools in dealings with institutions. We will work for a new pact between the different categories, with the goal of harmonious growth of the entire sector, to ensure that alongside the large companies, which must be given credit for having conquered important positions in the international market, smaller ones can also grow and develop, addressing their problems of access to financing, and favouring synergy between small, medium and large companies,” Sbarigia concluded in her report.

Chiara Sbarigia, from Rome, graduated in Literature with honours and joined APT, which later became APA, in 1994, climbing through all the positions until being appointed General Manager in 2003 and President of APA Service in 2020. Over the years she has managed the internationalisation and training of the sector and founded and operationally directed the RomaFictionFest and the International Audiovisual Market (MIA). She is a juror at the Premio Strega, the Monte Carlo Television Festival and is a member of the Collegio Soci Fondatori – Fondazione Cinema per Roma. From 2021 she will hold the position of President of Cinecittà SpA.

Chiara Sbarigia reconfirmed the team of the Presidency, guaranteeing continuity to the governance of the APA. Therefore, the four Vice-Presidents Gabriella Buontempo (Clemart), Matteo Levi (11 Marzo Film), Giovanni Stabilini (Cattleya) and Iginio Straffi (Rainbow) remain in office.