Chiara Sbarigia

Chiara Sbarigia studied at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music and graduated from the Torquato Tasso classical high school in Rome, later graduating with honours from La Sapienza University. She joined APT (Associazione Produttori Televisivi) in 1994, later becoming APA (Associazione Produttori Audiovisivi), climbing all the ranks until becoming its General Manager in 2016 and finally President in 2023. For APA she managed the strategic planning of all institutional and promotional activities and representation in Confindustria Cultura.

She is an expert in internationalisation and international promotion of the audiovisual sector and has coordinated the participation of Italian companies in the audiovisual, European and non-European markets.

In 1995, she conceived and set up, for the first time in Italy, the activities of the audiovisual sector abroad, with the Italian collective presence at American, Asian and European trade fairs, devising and organising smaller events, such as the Audiovisual Showcases in focus countries (France, Spain) and, since 2017, all editions of B2B meetings between Italian producers and top US players in Los Angeles. From 2021 it will set the Audiovisual Producers Summit in Italy, a unique networking event between domestic and foreign producers, commissioners and audiovisual experts.

From 2007 to 2016, it managed public funding and operationally directed the RomaFictionFest, an international TV series festival, a brand owned by the Association. Since its second edition, the Festival includes an Industry section that will be the foundation of the audiovisual section of the International Audiovisual Market (MIA). Since 2017 she has been on the Steering Committee of MIA, a brand of APA and Anica, which she co-directed from 2016 to 2019, managing its budget and structuring its “Drama”, “Documentary” and “Unscripted” sections.

An expert in European affairs, she was until 2021 on the Board of the European Coordination of Independent Producers (CEPI) in Brussels, where she coordinated the Social Dialogue from 2014 and held the position of Treasurer. For APA, he also coordinated all the implementation activities of the Cross-Border Directives on independent production, copyright and European funding. Since July 2023, she has been President of the Board of Directors.

From 1998 to 2020 she was APA delegate at the trade union negotiation table on the Troupes CCNL and Councillor of the Bilateral Body of Employers’ Associations/Trade Union Representations AsForCinema.

In the field of training, she has been a member of the MIUR-MIBACT Scientific Committee for the national training course for teachers “Operatori di Educazione Visiva a Scuola” (Visual Education Operators at School) and is Commissioner for the Master of Fiction Serial Writing (promoted by RAI Fiction and the Italian Centre for Advanced Studies in Radio and Television Journalism). She is on the Steering Committee of the Luiss Writing School for Cinema and Television and on the Scientific Committee of the advanced training course for film and audiovisual locations at the University of San Marino.

She is an expert in sector research, having commissioned research for APA since 1996 from some of the main media institutes (Osservatorio della Fiction Italiana, Certa, eMedia, Symbola, Geca Italia); she has also implemented the system for the allocation of Private Copy for audiovisuals and the assignment of the ISAN Code for cinema and audiovisuals.

Since 20 April 2021, she has held the position of President of Istituto Luce Cinecittà where she is responsible for the promotion of cinema, training, museum activities and the Luce Archive. In 2024, she joined the Board of Directors of the Committee for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Guglielmo Marconi and since 16 July 2024 she has been a member of the Board of Directors of Fondazione Cinema per Roma.

Exercising her cultural responsibilities for Cinecittà – Luce:

• She conceived and curated the exhibitions “La memoria delle Stazioni” at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, “I mondi di Gina” at Palazzo Poli, “Architetture inabitabili” at the Centrale Montemartini (all three with catalogues published by Marsilio). Then he promoted the exhibitions ‘Caio Garrubba- FREElance on the road’ and ‘Interesting years. Moments of Italian Life, 1960-1975’.

He invited Vanessa Beecroft to Rome, who realised at Teatro 5 VB93 the biggest performance of her career, with more than three hundred models; and Davide Quayola who, as part of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the LUCE Institute, realised at the Smart Stage of Teatro 18 in Cinecittà the performance LUCE- Temporal Relations and New Algorithmic Paintings.

He promoted the constitution of the museum heritage of MIAC – Museo Italiano dell’Audiovisivo e del Cinema.
He conceived the Cinecittà podcast line La Ballata dell’Andrea Doria, Perché Pasolini?, L’ultimo volo dell’herone – Coppi e il giro del ’53, Un viaggio dispari, Luce e controuce, all produced by Chora media.
She conceived and curated the conference Another kind of leadership, dedicated to women’s empowerment in cultural management, held at the Roman Aquarium in February 2023.

He conceived and implemented all the Cinecittà Luce training activities financed by the PNRR, which includes the LuceLabCinecittà specialised courses in three professional macro-areas: business/managerial; creative/artistic; technical workers. The proposed package of initiatives is the result of a planning process that allowed to share and outline an offer consistent with the training needs of the audiovisual sector.

During the same period, she received the Rome City Council’s Sympathy Prize, the Ausonia Prize and, at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, she was awarded the Women in Cinema Award.

Since 2005 she has been a juror at the Monte Carlo Television Festival and since 2022 at the Premio Strega. She has also written articles for the daily newspapers il Foglio and il Sole 24 ore and the essay “Le immagini della Storia” included in the anthology Roma 1944. Le Fosse Ardeatine e la Liberazione ottant’anni dopo, edited by Ottavio Ragone, published by the daily newspaper La Repubblica.

In September 2023 she was chosen to be portrayed, together with a hundred other women, for the exhibition Straordinarie. Protagonists of the present, curated by Renata Ferri and with photographs by Ilaria Magliocchetti Lombi, opened at MAXXI in Rome (Silvana editoriale catalogue).