18 Three Italian events, three celebrations to jump-start a stalled Italian entertainment sector. The 70th iteration of the Venice International Film Festival, which is organized by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera, will run August 28 through September 7 on the Lido of Venice. For its 2013 edition, theVenice Film Market (VFM) will return with its director, French import Pascal Diot, who last year revamped the market portion of the festival. According to Diot, “Several new initiatives will be implemented this year. The first is that the Venice Film Market will offer to sales agents and producers three to four market screening rooms with 15 to 150 seats [to show their movies]. The second initiative is that, in addition to the 60 distributors that we have invited, we will invite 40 producers from all over the world.” “We want the VFM to be a networking place and thus we will organize happy hours every day and special one-on-one meetings between producers, sales agents, film commissions and independent exhibitors,” he added. “Last year we had 192 distributors and I do hope we should have around 250 this year coming mainly from Europe but also from Asia and the Middle East. We are offering packages including a stand, accreditations and promotion starting at 5,000 euro [U.S.$6,500].” In addition, Diot pointed out that there will be conferences and seminars related to buying and selling movies and “several regarding production.” One consideration about the “70th year celebration” is that the Venice FilmFestival actually began in 1932, making it at 81 the world’s oldest festival. After a hiatus during World War II, it resumed its full pace in 1946, but the organizers are celebrating the return in a reduced form in 1943. This year’s edition of Prix Italia, entitled, “The Tree of Ideas: 65 Years of Culture in Radio, Television and the Web,” will be held September 21-26 in Turin, Italy. The international radiotelevisionandweb competitionevent is sponsored by RAI, the public Italian Radio-Television broadcasting organization. This year’s event will see the inauguration of Prix Italia’s Digital Archive case of the Prix Italia Foundation, which will make Prix Italia’s history available to its more than 100 members, which include broadcast stations and AV web operators. There will be numerous conferences, the majority of which are academic in nature. Yet production and business will also be explored in a September 23 international conference dedicated to drama entitled, “Television Series in Europe and in the World.” The session will feature speakers from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Sweden, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S. Other conferences of note include “Feeding the Planet,” a program organized with the cooperation of the United Nations World Food Program Agency, dedicated to Milan’s Expo 2015 (which focuses on policies for water) and the subject of “learning to feed ourselves.” There will also be two conferences on Multimedia Journalists (organized by the EBUUER and coordinated by Mike Mullane, director of New Media at EBU) and one on social media, titled “Social Media Week Conference: Television and Journalism Put to the Test by the Social Media.” Session one will focus on the question: “What will future talk shows be like with the impact of the second screen?” Session two will focus on “the speed of today’s instant news: how web news starts and the speed it spreads.” On September 25, there will be a Public Debate of theRadio, TV,WebandSpecial Prize Juries, and an announcement of the finalists and winners. The Prix Italia Award Ceremony will be held on Thursday, September 26 in Turin University’s Aula Magna, with Nobel Literature Prize laureate and artist Dario Fo. Additionally, a number of international artists will be in attendance, including Japanese artist Riyoi Ikeda,whowill giveanopen-airperformance in one of Turin’s historic piazzas using audio-video installations; the premiere of a documentary about a Robert Wilson stage production with Mikhail Baryshnikov andWillemDafoe, and an artist from French TV, with more to be confirmed. Both the opening and closing ceremonies of Prix Italiawill beheldat theToscaniniAuditoriumwith performances by Rai’s Symphony Orchestra. Rome, Italy-based Studio Universal, the popular channel created by Universal Studios (now NBCUniversal) in 1998 to feature classic American movies, turned 15 on May 21, 2013. The history of Studio Universal echoes that of the cable and satellite TV sectors in Italy. It began as part of Stream TV, the platform started as a cable-TV service that, in 1998, also became satellite. In 2003, Studio Universal moved to Sky Italia when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. acquired both Stream TV and its competing Tele+ from Vivendi (the pay-TV platform Tele+ was created by Fininvest, which later became Mediaset). With the introduction of digital terrestrial service in Italy, Studio Universal migrated to the terrestrial digital platform of Mediaset Premium. Last month, for its 15th anniversary Studio Universal gave itself a new look and a new logo that follows light beams piercing through a dark room, just as when a movie is projected on a theater screen. For the occasion, followers of the channel will be rewarded with a line-up of movies neverbefore-shown on Studio Universal. Finally, Luca Cadura, the chairman and creative force behind the channel, has also involved the audience in the celebrations by devising a game called “Party with Studio Universal” through the channel’s website. Celebrations: Venice Film Fest Is 70, Prix Italia Turns 65, Studio Universal Hit 15 June/July 2013 Made in Italy A press conference at Prix Italia last year. Pictured on the far right is Secretary General Giovanna Milella Reception at VFM A seminar on Turkish TV at last year’s Prix Italia
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