Tessa Battisti and Caterina Frontull have just completed professional refresher courses in set design and costumes at the iSSF – Institut für Schauspiel- Film- und Fernsehberufe in Berlin; in the fall, Martina Ferraretto attended a workshop on stage photography held by Mario Spada and Angelo Turretta in Bolzano; whilst last December, Michele Priano attended a training course in Varna for mobile elevated working platform operators.

The link between all these young professionals is MOV!E IT, the training pathway for professional assistants on theatrical productions which originated from the collaboration between BLS and the ZeLIG school, and evolved last November into an on-line communication platform (www.movie-it.info).

The website offers a complete picture of the training proposals on offer, divided into five different categories: MOV!E IT! Young,
MOV!E IT! Compact, MOV!E IT! Scholarship, MOV!E IT! Mentoring Program and MOV!E IT! Professionals.
Themed itineraries consisting of conferences or workshops, scholarships or refresher courses, or an ongoing exchange of ideas with established professionals. Many of the initiatives are organized with external partners in order to encourage synergies.

“I learned lots of new things on the iSFF course, you meet lots of new people from the world of cinema with whom you might be able to work in the future”, comments Caterina Frontull, 29 years old, who has worked on sets in South Tyrol as a costume assistant and in the wardrobe department. However Berlin, “a cutting-edge city not just for cinema but in all creative spheres” is the main reason she went for the scholarship.
Tessa Battisti, 33 years old, set designer, also talks about the value of Berlin although she found the course to be “a bit too basic” with respect to the skills she had previously acquired.
Martina Ferraretto, 27 years old, is very satisfied. She is also from South Tyrol, but is currently living in Turin where she works in a creative studio that makes commercials. The lessons by Mario Spada and Angelo Turretta served to complete her work although she is not currently a stage photographer: she finds what she learned very useful “when we are making sets” for our commercials.

However, for Michele Priano, 28 years old, production inspector, the mobile elevated working platform operators’ course was directly functional to his professional requirements: it is often necessary to maneuver this equipment when working on productions and recent regulations have imposed a specific qualification. “It was an excellent idea to attend the course”, comments Priano: “I acquired some very useful production skills, not just with regard to reducing costs, but also in terms of safety on the set”.

After five years of activities by the South Tyrol Film Fund & Commission, the region can offer over 500 professionals: a result that the Film Commission intends to nourish with ongoing training, an objective that has become a priority (as confirmed by the MOV!E IT! platform).

This commitment, in the light of the announcement concerning the special attention to young talents which is one of the Fund’s new support criteria, offers a glimpse of a broader strategy aimed at creating a local production fabric consisting of technology and services, as well as creativity and stories. This interpretation is supported by the next training events.

According to MOV!E IT! a lighting technology course will be held at the end of February in Bolzano organized by REC Südtirol Alto Adige (supervisor Achim Dunker); February will also see the launch of the Racconti/ Local Plus – BLS Short Film Program devised in collaboration with the three Culture divisions of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano which is mainly aimed at talents from South Tyrol; whereas Cooperazione alpine-Alpine Cooperation (organized by HFF Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München, Akademie des österreichischen Films, ZHdK Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, ZeLIG): a week of workshops involving students and young producers from the 4 organizing countries, with the objective of creating a transnational co-production network, will be held in Zurich, in March.

Another interesting new feature for this year is Final Touch #1: Intense Feedback from Experts, aimed at filmmakers who want to perfect their film or documentary in the final stage of development.
The South Tyrol Film Commission and the Bolzano Film Fest Bozen will offer them an opportunity to discuss their project with an interdisciplinary pool of experts. 3 theatrical projects will be chosen and two team members for each one will be invited to the Festival (13–17 April) in order to analyze and discuss their project with a pool of experts.