Buskin Film starts production this week on veteran Italian arthouse director Fabio Carpi's Le Intermittenze Del Cuore ; marking the young Rome sales outfit's second foray into high-profile Italian feature film production.

Carpi's Euros 4m semi-autobiographical picture revolves around the memories of a man who is preparing a film about Marcel Proust. The movie stars veteran Argentinian actor Hector Alterio (Son Of The Bride, Passionate People) and will shoot in Rome, Turin, Paris, Luxembourg, Zurich and Venice.

The production is a fine fit for the Rome company, says chief executive Antonio Guadalupi, who intends to focus on high production values and making commercially-viable arthouse movies for international audiences.

Buskin is also in post-production on Water And Fire (L'Acqua E Il Fuoco ), a Euros 3.5m picture by another veteran arthouse director, Luciano Emmer. It stars international favourite Giancarlo Giannini (Hannibal) and Italian actress Sabrina Ferilli, a popular local pin-up who plays three women who all suffer from loneliness. Italian theatrical and home video rights to the Emmer film have been snapped up by Columbia Tristar Italia.

Forthcoming productions from Buskin, which is headed by Mediaset veteran Roberto Bessi and former advertising executive Guadalupi, include German-born Margarethe Von Trotta's May The Stars Shine (Lucean Le Stelle ). The film is set in 1942 and is about a film producer preparing a movie in Rome but who is confronted by anti-semitic racial laws. The movie marks Von Trotta's return to cinema from TV drama.

Buskin has also been making sales on other films. It sold Emidio Greco's Council Of Egypt, a historical drama adapted from a novel by cult Sicilian Leonardo Sciascia, to Spain and Latin America and is in talks with Japan and Korea. Sales have also been made on Laura Muscardin's Giorni to Greece and Poland. Talks are underway with French, Spanish and US distributors. Guadalupi did not reveal the names of distributors.