The “Revolution of the new producers guild of Italy”: the title Cinema&Video International chose for covering the 3rd National Meeting of the Association of Young Independent Producers (AGPCI), held in Bologna from January 17-19, already contained the key concepts for launching the guild’s guidelines.
The first, most pressing step is internationalization. The need to open up more and more to foreign co-productions is based on the strategic premise of territorial entrenchment and regional decentralization.
“The territory is our master, there is ferment in the regions, there are ideas,” says AGPCI President Martha Capello. She adds that opening up to the foreign market will moreover “strengthen partnerships with other countries’ producers guilds. We will soon meet with US guilds, and we’re working to create partnerships with France and Germany.” Internationalization, then, is the first step to a greater freedom of expression and of market, and includes the need to revolutionalize pro- duction and distribution methods, by adapting to new scenarios created by the technological revolution, as well as building that which AGPCI Vice President Michele Fasano calls Integrated Corporate Social Responsibility in the Film Industry.
All of these points converge in the new partnership between the AGPCI and the Venice Film Market (VFM), and will be actualized, as VFM Director Pascal Diot announced, in the 4th AGPCI Meeting, where approximately 20 international producers (selected by Diot) will meet with Italian producers to discuss their projects.
“Martha and I began talking about this partnership last year in Venice,” Diot said. “And I already had in mind a Focus on the Italian industry for this year’s edition. For example, I’d like to organize a pitching session of Italian projects with international appeal. I’ve already begun talking to film commissions and various associations, including the AGPCI. I’m interested in them because they’re independent. Naturally, they have less experience on the international market compared to the ‘big’ players, and this is precisely the direction my work with them will take. I share their ideas and believe that their choice of the word ‘revolution’ is particularly appropriate, because the transition underway in Europe is radically changing production and distribution systems.t’s a revolution that has to happen in order to increase diversification of product and to make the Italian industry more international, by developing co-productions, a fundamental step to surviving in a scenario where public film funding is disappearing.”
Another issue discussed at the Meeting was the need to make room for genre cinema.
“A lot of it is produced in Italy,” said producer Fabio Segatori, “which doesn’t find distribution at home but abroad, where it’s sold and esteemed.”
Another important step in this direction was taken by Diot, who launched Frontières, the first European Co-production Market of solely genre cinema, at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal in July of 2012, which is now expanding in Europe in order to develop and strengthen the co-production of genre films between Europe and North America.
The next edition of Frontières will take place in Brussels from April 12-14, during the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.
MOVIE MARKET PLACE
There was great interest among meeting participants in the Movie Market Place, the virtual market of projects with a European and international flavor looking for international co-producers. Created by Cinema & Video International and presented in Bologna, the database lists documentaries and narrative features in development and seeking financing.
The Movie Market Place is online at www.cinemaevideo.it
