In a bid to streamline transport and logistics — and spare attendees from spending half the festival shuttling up and down the Italian Riviera — this year’s Italian Global Series Festival has drawn a clearer line between its two host cities. Rimini takes the opening days (July 3–6), Riccione the central stretch (July 7–10), before the event returns to Rimini for its closing ceremony on July 11.

The split should also give visitors more time to absorb the festival’s distinctive settings: from the historic Cinema Fulgor — where a young Federico Fellini first fell under cinema’s spell — to the imposing Castel Sismondo, the 15th-century fortress that now houses the Fellini Museum. Indeed, rather than treating Rimini’s most famous son as a backdrop, IGS has made him a patron saint.

“The spirit of Federico Fellini is ever present,” says artistic director Marco Spagnoli. “Beyond the obvious reasons, I honestly believe that if he were alive today, he would be making series. They would be enormously ambitious and expensive, of course, and they would be masterpieces. Fellini loved cinema, but above all he loved audiences. The possibility of reaching people through long-form storytelling would have fascinated him.”

In tribute, the festival will host showrunner Carlton Cuse (“Lost,” “Bates Motel”, “Jack Ryan”) and Oscar winner John Ridley (“12 Years a Slave”) for a free-ranging conversation titled “Lost in Fellini.” The session invites the longtime collaborators — and “Five Days at Memorial’ co-creators — to geek out about a shared obsession both discovered as students.

That youth focus runs throughout this year’s edition. Via the inaugural IGS Summer School, 60 film and television students from Rimini and Riccione will form a “super jury,” attending screenings, press conferences and masterclasses before awarding the new Maximino Prize alongside the festival’s official honors.

“It’s often difficult in Italy to make the leap from university into the industry,” says Chiara Sbarigia, president of Italy’s Audiovisual Producers Association, and one of the festival’s organizers. “This gives students direct access to the professional world — putting them face to face with producers, directors and leading creatives. At the same time, it’s a form of market research, as understanding how younger audiences engage with content is one of the industry’s biggest questions.”

Given its significant institutional overlap with Rome’s MIA Market — also overseen by the APA and coordinated by Spagnoli — the public-facing IGS is under less pressure to formalize its industry programming, dovetailing instead with the festival’s broader appeal as a seaside retreat where professionals can connect and decompress.

Within that relaxed, business-casual framework, however, the festival is carving out room for something new: Pitch Crime, an initiative dedicated to developing crime series for Italian and international markets. Aimed at film companies looking to move into television, the program opens with a selection phase before moving into one-on-one pitching sessions with producers and industry insiders. The strongest entry walks away with a Maximo Award and a development grant.

“This is an experiment,” Sbarigia admits. “We want to understand if it’s possible to bring new life into the business. If it goes well and the winner finds co-producers or commissioners, we’ll look to launch it internationally next year with a much longer submission window.”

Longer term, Sbarigia wants to build in more breathing room, finding new ways for international screenwriters and showrunners to spark ideas off one another while opening up similar space for student participants.

“I would like to have more time — not to make it longer, but to offer more varied professional activities,” she says. “Rimini is so welcoming to creativity, because of Fellini, because of the local passion. It’s a really beautiful place to exchange ideas.”