The sixth edition of the International Rome Film Festival ended on November 5rd.
During the first six years of its life, the Festival has integrated well with the fabric of the city as well as the audiovisual industry’s calendar of events.
It is a Festival that addresses a real public, that focuses its attention on every section of the event, not just the competition.
In a complementary way it has also managed to imaginatively develop the market dimension, building an efficient platform for independent production projects with New Cinema Network, as well as new business opportunities with Industry Books, the business area dedicated to adapting books for the big and small screen, alongside the informal meetings between buyers and sellers on the terrace of the Hotel Bernini Bristol.
The numbers confirm the success of this edition of the festival (a 5% increase in visitors, with a total of 130,000 attendees), and it also had an extraordinary impact on the city’s tourist and cultural economy: according to the estimates of the Rome Chamber of Commerce (reported by the newspaper “Sole24Ore”), the Festival directly or indirectly brought 400 million Euros to the capital, almost double the amount registered two years ago.
On the eve of planned changes at the top of the organization, with mandates expiring at the end of this year, we are beginning to wonder about the new names on the horizon and the future of the International Rome Film Festival.
It has been said that the various institutions located in the territory, particularly Rome City Council and the Regione Lazio, as well as the Provincial Government of Rome, are seeing the event increasingly as their “own”.
We should also thank Minister Galan for this situation, since his aversion to the Rome Festival has “reawakened” local pride and, via a rather tortuous route, identified the strategic value of holding a film market in Italy and, in particular, in Rome.
The announcement of The Business Street’s move to the Maxxi in 2012 is very important but it will have to work hard to match the identity of the Market modeled on the evocative atmosphere of Via Veneto.
The fact that so many professionals and international talents come to Italy for its other “extra-movie” attractions is an element to be weighed up in any decisions made.
Some of you will also recall that Mifed owed some of its appeal to the fact that it was held in the city of fashion: many Japanese visitors, in particular, came so that they could go shopping on Via Montenapoleone.
In Rome, we have Via Veneto, and all the rest. For these reasons, Cinema & Video International has decided to realize a special online report in an attempt to represent, through the comments of the participants, the progress and the prospects of the three sections of the Rome Market: The Business Street, New Cinema Network and Industry Books.
We have also tried to offer our foreign readers a taste of life beyond the world of business.
In fact the English edition includes a supplement that links them to other stories: a journey through Italian lifestyles with Emotions in Italy .
