Many operators and professionals of the audiovisual sector attendedCinè in Riccione, during the conference “Italian films in theatre – How to relaunch a twin strategy for the entire sector”, organised by ANICA, ANEC and ANEM. The event involved Director General and CEO of Universal Pictures International Italy Richard Borg, CEO of Rai Cinema Paolo Del Brocco, CEO of IMG Cinema Gianantonio Furlan, VP and CEO of Medusa Film Giampaolo Letta, CEO of Vision Distribution Nicola Maccanico, CEO of Lucky Red Andrea Occhipinti and CEO of Lucisano Media Group’s Stella Film Luciano Stella.
During his speech, Giampaolo Letta highlighted the importance of alliances between operators, referring to his partnership with Vision Distribution: “we produce more and more films that don’t gross much and we need to find solutions which strengthen the market and innovate distribution models by considering the idea of managing the process ourselves. This is the only way to attract young people again, along with a policy of permanent price reduction under 20 and a renovation of theatres”. Maccanico agreed with him and talked about how Vision Distribution was created by an idea of changing, based on creating synergies between operators and highlighting the importance of knowing the audience’s taste: “we still think that all movies are mainstream in Italy, but audience targets depend on the film. We must know this target and pay attention to promotional campaigns”.
Richard Borg emphasised film promotion too: “audience in Italy moves away from theatres, in contrast to what happens in the rest of the world. The solution would be to renovate the network of festivals and awards that should help people to know movies. There are too many festivals, but nobody knows winning films because they are associated with the industry, not with the public”.
“The three central themes we have to work on” Del Brocco said, “are associated with the lack of audience: young people between 14 and 18 years old was the strong public of comedy once, but that genre is in a period of stagnation right now. We must re-educate youth on a certain kind of offer. Secondly, people aged from 40 to 60 are not enough because of the lack of proper theatres. Finally, there’s the problem of provinces where there aren’t theatres and, consequently, there’s no audience. We need to bring cinema back”.
Luciano Stella focused on the viewer who has been “forgotten by the industry: stories are repetitive and there’s an excessive overlapping of the cast. We need to investigate audience’s taste, not to offer them a standard formula of films because we risk to produce big-budget movies which don’t gross anything”.
Andrea Occhipinti highlighted the idea of dialogue between producers and writers: “this dialogue is difficult in Italy, much more than abroad. About festivals, the problem is that writers perceive screenings at the festivals as a culmination, not as a starting point, and pay little attention to what happens in theatres. It’s inevitable that high-quality films stay confined to a group of insiders”.
Finally, Furlan talked about the urgency of joining forces in the sector with “the sole purpose of bringing the public to theatres. This requires theconstruction of new theatres, the innovation of stories and cast of films which are becoming increasingly repetitive and the understanding of the audience’s taste. This is the only way of resolving this situation of uncertainty”.
