Just over a year old, Italian arthouse production and distribution company Revolver is set to debut its international distribution arm with a slate of seven Italian films at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The films include Il Resto Di Niente by Antonietta De Lillo, Premio Solinas winner Lontano In Fondo Agli Occhi by Giuseppe Rocca-Solinas, and the American film Marathon by Iranian director Amir Naderi, which Revolver co-produced.

At home, Revolver will begin its foreign film distribution with South Korean film Oasis. Other titles to be released in the following months include Ken Park by Larry Clark, Music For Weddings And Funerals by Unni Straume, Philippe Garrel's Sauvage Innocence and A Snake Of June by Japanese cult director Shinia Tsukamoto.

Revolver co-founder Paolo Spina says he and his colleagues look for quality films that are edgy and perhaps too risky for other distributors. "We want to give hard-to-please arthouse audiences something that normal distributors don't necessarily give them. There isn't much of this being done in Italy, at least not with conviction." Spina's collaborators include producer Verena Baldeo and noted casting director Shaila Rubin.

On the production end, Spina says the company is looking for the most part to Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union for original and interesting co-production projects. Together with broadcaster France 3, France's Certis Communications and Albianian broadcaster Albimage, they will co-produce Chant D'amour, scripted by Ylljet Alicka, who wrote the 2001 Quinzaine winner Slogans.

They have also joined forces with German production company Egoli Tossell Film (who were behind Russian Ark and Georgian director Nana Dzordzhaze's 27 Missing Kisses) to co-produce Dzordzhaze's newest project, The Weather Idiot, written by her husband, award-winning screenwriter Irakli Kvirikadze, and Agnieszka Holland's Catherine, a look at the life of Catherine the Great. The films are set to go into production late this year and 2004, respectively.

The company is preparing two Italian films as well: Dee Jay, the first feature film by documentary filmmaker Alberto D'Onofrio and a new project by The Dervish director Alberto Rondalli.

Revolver has also launched a music label, specializing for Italian lounge and acid jazz music, and is publishing university textbooks. By the end of this summer, they plan to open and/or co-manage half a dozen arthouse cinemas in some of Italy's larger cities, including Bologna, Genova, Palermo and Milan.