There is a lot of excitement in the Marche.
The Film Commission is currently working on several productions and concentrating on one, in particular: “The Marche Region”, says Anna Olivucci, head of the Marche Film Commission, “is working on reaching an agreement to support the production of “’Il Giovane Favoloso’ by Mario Martone, a costume movie about Giacomo Leopardi produced by Palomar, a complex movie which we believe it is very important to shoot here, mainly for reasons of territorial identity”.
Olivucci continues: “We are following a couple of other productions through the Fondazione Marche Cinema Multimedia. We have already been involved in the development phase and some location scouting has already been done. We are working on promoting the relationship with the local Confindustria (Italian Emplo- yers’ Federation) and individual entrepreneurs. We want these entities to understand that the product placement activities being proposed are a proper production investment and not a case of occasional patronage.”
Product placement and, above all, territorial placement. It is no coincidence that the Fondazione is preparing a meeting at the BIT (International Tourism Exchange, in Milan) which will be held on February 14th:
“We would like to provide information about our activities, the recent past and the future. For this reason we want to invite producers of new projects and those who have recently completed filming with us”.
In December and October, in fact, the Marche hosted two important Rai Cinema productions, to which they gave a small amount of financial support:
“Niente può fermarci” (Nothing can stop us) is an “on the road” comedy directed by Luigi Cecinelli, starring, amongst others, Gerard Depardieu, Vincenzo Salemme, Serena Autieri and Gianmarco Tognazzi. Produced by Claudio Zamarion of Angelika Vision, it was filmed in the Villa-Castle of Semivicoli (Chieti), in the center of Ancona and in Conero.
The main location for “Come il Vento” (Like the wind) by Marco Simon Puccioni was the prison of Montacuto in Ancona: in fact, the movie was inspired by the story of Armida Miserere, for twenty years the governor of several Italian prisons during the period of the Mafia, terrorism and the P2.
Produced by Rai Cinema, Intelfilm, Red Carpet, Revolver and Les Films du Present, starring Valeria Golino and Filippo Timi, the movie sets an important record for the Film Commission because, explains Olivucci: “for the first time it involves the collaboration of six social cooperatives which are active in the Marche region and supported the movie by combining forces with a tax credit operation in order to highlight their commitment todiffusion of themes regarding rights and social justice”.
In addition to the prison, the movie was also filmed in the provinces of Pesaro-Urbino (the “Riserva della Gola del Furlo”), Ancona and the “Riserva del Conero”.
In her role as vice president of the Italian Film Commissions, Anna Olivucci wishes to bring attention to the way investment in culture generates wealth, confirming the need to be equipped to fight the heavy cuts to cultural initiatives made by the latest national and EC policies: “ANICA figures show that the audiovisual sector has 6120 businesses, 200,000 employees, a turnover of 6 billion Euros, with an impact on the territory equal to six times the public investment. For this reason, our association has put forward a request to the new political forces: we need to keep the film commissions united in their objectives, and continue to strive for recognition of the sector’s rights and production capacities”.