TV dramas have also found a home in Apulia.
This is mainly due to the success of the two episode mini-series directed by Alberto Negrin, “Pane e libertà ” ( Bread and Freedom) starring Pierfrancesco Favino, with music by Ennio Morricone.
Carlo Degli Esposti’s Palomar (“Detective Montalbano”, “Cefalonia”, “Perlasca, the Courage of a Just Man”) produced the small screen version of the story about the Apulian trade unionist Giuseppe Di Vittorio who, in the postwar period, was elected as the first secretary general of the CGIL [Italian General Confederation of Labor] and was a member of the Constituent Assembly of the PCI (Italian Communist Party).
Filmed in Gravina in Puglia, Altamura and Cerignola and broadcast by RaiUno in March 2009 with excellent viewing figures, the Regional Government was strongly involved in “Pane e libertà “, providing logistical and economic support (investing one million Euros in the production).
“It was really great because the Region combined attention to the product with intelligent economic assistance to help us make a movie about a great Italian but, above all, a great Apulian”, says Carlo Degli Esposti. “We filmed in various little towns in Apulia and always got a warm welcome and valid practical help”.
This drama, to be broadcast on RaiUno, will be filmed in Bari and Brindisi in the first half of 2010, and has also been realized with the support of the Apulia Film Commission.