These pro­fes­sio­nals came from more than 30 coun­tries (e.g. Ar­gen­tina, Brazil, Ca­nada, Egypt, Ger­many, Me­xico, Ro­mania, Russia, Sweden, and the USA) and in­cluded li­terary agents, rights ma­na­gers, pro­du­cers and pu­blis­hing scouts for ci­nema, te­le­vi­sion and mul­ti­media pro­duc­tions. For the three days of the Forum (from Thursday 13 to Sa­turday 15 May) they oc­cu­pied the 200 ta­bles set up in the Lin­gotto Con­fe­rence Centre, the hub of the b2b ope­ra­tions at the To­rino In­ter­na­tional Book Fair, ta­king part in a total of 7500 mee­tings (1500 more than in 2009).

These three days saw many deals struck: Ar­lina Dudaj, head of Dudaj Pu­blis­hing (Al­bania), bought the pu­blis­hing rights for the trans­la­tion of se­veral books, as for example, Bianca come il latte rossa come il sangue by Ales­sandro D'Avenia from Mon­dadori, and Che la festa co­minci by Nic­colò Am­ma­niti from Kylee Doust agency (Dudaj had al­ready bought the rights to his pre­vious three books at the London and Frank­furt Book Fairs).

Other in­ter­na­tional players ne­go­tia­ting pu­blis­hing rights in­cluded United Agents and Pro­file Books from the UK; Bu­chet-Chastel from France; Maria B. Camp­bell As­so­ciates, Pen­guin, Three Per­cent, Harper Col­lins and Broadway Books (RH Group) from the USA; McAr­thur & Com­pany from Ca­nada; and Edi­to­rial Co­sac­Naify from Brazil.

The IBF 2010 fea­tured a spe­cial focus on India, the guest country of the Book Fair, with pu­blis­hing houses Ab­hinav Pu­bli­ca­tions, Har-Anand Pu­bli­ca­tions, Dia­mond Pocket Books, PHI Lear­ning, Pit­ambar Pu­blis­hing Com­pany, Planet Mul­ti­media Pu­blisher, Pu­stak Mahal, Shishu Sa­hitya Samsad, Star Pu­bli­ca­tions, Ster­ling Pu­blisher, Laxmi Pu­bli­ca­tions, Tushar Pu­bli­ca­tions and  Bol­ly­wood video giant UTV, whose first visit to the IBF re­sulted in the dis­co­very of some very in­te­res­ting pro­jects that they in­tend to work on in the fu­ture.

On the movie front busi­ness was brisk among li­terary scouts and con­sul­tants from major US pro­duc­tion houses and ta­lent agen­cies, in­clu­ding Co­lumbia Pic­tures / Sony Pic­tures En­ter­tain­ment, Fox In­ter­na­tional, Metro Goldwyn Mayer/United Ar­tists and In­ter­na­tional Crea­tive Ma­na­ge­ment (the agency that re­pres­ents stars like Al Pa­cino, Sa­muel L. Jackson and Woody Allen). From Bri­tain, we saw Warp Films, among many others; from Sweden Fun­da­ment Film; from Ger­many In­te­gral Film; and from Russia United Film Com­pany. The dy­na­mism of the cur­rent Ita­lian ci­nema scene was amply de­mons­trated by the par­ti­ci­pa­tion of Ita­lian pro­duc­tion houses: Wild­side, a cine-TV pro­duc­tion com­pany formed by Lo­renzo Mieli, Mario Gia­nani, Sa­verio Co­stanzo, Fausto Brizzi and Marco Mar­tani; Off­side, now in pro­duc­tion with films "La so­li­tu­dine dei nu­meri primi", based on the novel of the same name which was pu­blished by Mon­dadori, and  "Mia so­rella è una foca mo­naca", ad­apted from the book pu­blished by Fazi; Fox Italia; Catt­leya; Fan­dango; Mi­nimum Fax Media; Co­lo­rado Film. Ita­lians were also pro­mi­nent in the dis­cus­sion and de­bate ses­sions re­served for pu­blis­hing/film pro­fes­sio­nals: Ita­lian Pu­blis­hers in the USA - ap­proach to the US market and po­ten­tial ope­nings for Ita­lian pu­blis­hing houses, a pre­sen­ta­tion by ICE (Na­tional In­sti­tute for For­eign Trade) and  AIE (Ita­lian Pu­blis­hers’ As­so­cia­tion); Film on the book: Un­so­li­cited ad­vice to pu­blis­hers from a writer/di­rector, con­tri­buted by di­rector Marco Ponti. As in past years, ac­cre­dited par­ti­ci­pants had free ac­cess to the IBF Lounge with its feast of fine Pied­mon­tese food and wine. Every day (thanks to the ge­nerous sup­port of the Re­gione Pie­monte re­gional go­ver­n­ment) IFSE - Ita­lian Food Style Edu­ca­tion, of­fered Forum mem­bers a wide range of su­perb, haute cui­sine dishes, show­ca­sing the ex­cel­lent pro­duce from all the pro­vinces of the Re­gione Pie­monte. Once again this ini­tia­tive was made pos­sible by the solid sup­port of re­gional pro­mo­ters GoAsti, Con­sorzio Ope­ra­tori Tu­ri­stici Asti e Mon­fer­rato and Con­sorzio dell'Asti Spu­mante.

Next year’s IBF – In­ter­na­tional Book Forum will be held from Thursday 12 to Sa­turday 14 May 2011.

The In­ter­na­tional Book Forum is an ini­tia­tive of the To­rino In­ter­na­tional Book Fair, and has been  created by Bi­ella In­tra­pren­dere, backed by the or­ga­ni­za­tional and fi­nan­cial sup­port of the Na­tional In­sti­tute for For­eign Trade (ICE), with fun­ding from the Re­gione Pie­monte go­ver­n­ment and from the Mi­nistry of Eco­nomic De­ve­lop­ment, in the con­text of agree­ments esta­blished bet­ween the Mi­nistry, the Re­gion and ICE.