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Italian state broadcaster Rai, the country’s long-time major film and TV industry driver, is seeking to placate concerns being voiced by the country’s producers as it navigates the coronavirus crisis amid mounting criticism and shrinking resources.

As the pandemic paralyzes the economy in Italy — which at present is suffering the world’s highest coronavirus death toll, at upwards of 16,500 — the mammoth pubcaster, which has more than 13,000 employees, has revealed that its long-gestating organizational overhaul and 2020 budget approval have been frozen.

Meanwhile, Rai’s ratings are oscillating as it scrambles to reprogram slots of its more than 20 channels amid appeals to provide the country’s captive audience in lockdown more “culture” and “quality” programming, as veteran film director Pupi Avati (“Il Signor Diavolo”) put it in a recent open letter to national daily Corriere della Sera.

In another appeal to Rai’s top management, last week Italy’s indie documentary producers org.

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian family drama is screening in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema strand.

Urban Distribution has acquired French rights to Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian family drama The Father, which is screening in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema strand.

It won the Crystal Globe for best film at Karlovy Vary earlier this summer.

Wide has also sold Pupi Avati’s Italian horror title Il Signor Diavolo to Rocket Releasing for Russia and the Cis.

Cannes — Loic Magneron’s Paris-based Wide, a production-distribution boutique, has acquired international sales rights to “Il Signor Diavalo,” the latest -and 40th – feature from Italian horror icon Papi Avati,

Avati is best known for 1976’s “The House with Laughing Windows” and 1983’s “Zeder” which crowned him as a master of Italian giallo horror-thriller cinema.

Starring Gabriel Lo Giudice and Alessandro Haber, produced by Duea Films and Rai Cinema, and framed as a tribute to horror classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, “Il Signor Daivalo” adapts Avati’s own novel. Set in 1950s Italy, it turns on a 14-year-old boy, Carlo, who kills Emilio, a special needs ward of the local priest. “Il Signor Diavalo” asks why. It receives a Cannes Film Market screening on Sunday.

A well-known sales agent, Wide has moved into production. It is bringing two own productions onto the Cannes market: “Negative Numbers,” which receives a private market screening,...