Melanie Rodier in Rome and Jennifer Green in Madrid

Italy's Rai Trade and Spain's Kevin Williams Associates (KWA) have each picked up two hot titles to add to their respective Cannes' market slates.

Rai Trade, the sales arm of Italian public broadcaster RAI, has acquired controversial documentary Bella Ciao, about last year's rioting during the G8 meeting in Genoa. The film, which was co-directed by the outgoing head of RAI 2, Carlo Freccero, Marco Giusti and Roberto Torelli, will screen in Cannes' Critics Week.

Ironically, while Rai Trade has taken international distribution rights, its parent TV network reportedly refused to broadcast an earlier version of the film (right) in Italy.

In addition, Rai Trade bought worldwide sales rights to hotly-tipped director Alessandro D' Alatri's latest film, Casomai, starring Stefania Rocca and newcomer Fabio Volo.

Meanwhile, Spanish sales outfit (KWA) has acquired Brazil's Manhunters (Avassaladoras!) and Spain's Ibiza Dream (El Sueno De Ibiza), both set to make their market debut at Cannes.

Produced by Total Filmes, director Mara Mourao's Manhunters took a muscular $713,927 in its first 11 weeks at the Brazilian box office where it was distributed by Fox in a three-picture distribution deal with Total.

Ibiza Dream, a production of Seville-based Maestranza Films, is director Igor Fioravanti's feature debut, which previously screened in the Panorama section at Berlin.

Other titles on KWA's Cannes 2002 slate include Gerardo Herrero's Amazon-set Where Paradise Once Was (Un Lugar Donde Estuvo El Paraiso), Sandra Gugliotta's Berlin prize-winner A Lucky Day (Un Dia De Suerte), Hector Olivera's melodrama Antigua, My Life (Antigua Vida Mia) and Joaquin Oristrell's Malaga 2001 best film prize-winner, No Shame (Sin Verguenza).

As for Italy's Rai Trade - pursuing its strategy of presenting buyers at markets with a theatrical version of its top international TV dramas - the company is also set to unveil in Cannes a theatrical version of Dracula, a $10m two-part English-language mini-series directed by Roger Young and produced by Kirchmedia Production, and Italy's Lux Vide in association with Beta and Rai Trade.

The picture, whose length has been cut for theatrical and home entertainment purposes, was one of the first international films to be co-financed by the Rome sales agent.

Rai Trade will also use Cannes to show a theatrical version of Almost America, an Italian-Canadian mini-series which was co-produced by Eagle Pictures, Rai Fiction and Canada's Illusions Entertainment.