Franco Bocca Gelsi is an Italian film producer and based in Milan. He founded Gagarin Cooperativa in 2002 and Gagarin Srl in 2011. He has been a member of the European Producer Club since 2007. He is also a teacher and a script analyst.

Gagarin creates films that lend a voice to emerging film directors, particularly those who see themselves as auteurs. These films tend to delve with the fast transformations of contemporary cinema, in all of its cultural, technological and economic complexity. Gagarin also gives importance to the strong connection with its local cultural context (for example, in Great Milan), pushing cinema professionals to find new goals into the national market.

His most recent productions include: The Last Shepherd (Marco Bonfanti, 2012), about a man struggling against the urbanisation of a big city and trying to perpetuate the traditions of a rural labour and The Party (Simone Scafidi, 2013), about a group of teenagers that vanishes and few months later their parents receive an anonymous DVD.

The director’s works tend to portray an unusual Milan, more rural and less metropolis than the great capital of fashion, design and “more developed” Italy as it is known. Highlights include We Want Roses Too (Alina Marazzi, 2007): a documentary about communism in Italy. Franco Bocca Gelsi produced other documentaries, too.

The producer believes in the delivery of cinema through television series. In order to do that virtuously, the he explains: “we have to keep an open eye to the web content, because then we can fill the gap between creativity and business that often destroys the first one”. He also supports that independent producer’s role is to find hidden treasures and to keep their rights under control. They must fight against broadcasters who shun auteurship.

Bocca Gelsi can be reached at f.boccagelsi@gmail.com.