The Film Verdict had the opportunity to speak with the Amministratore Delegato of Rai Cinema, Paolo Del Brocco, just before he was leaving for the Venice Film Festival.
TFV: Paolo, your mandate has been renewed and you have just had a significant year that brought to fruition many of your initiatives. At the Berlin Film Festival, Rai Cinema unveiled Rai Cinema International Distribution, a sales organization focused on releasing the RAI Group’s film production abroad. Are you pleased with the results since it was launched? How are sales doing? And how would you characterize Rai Cinema International Distribution compared to the SACIS of years past?
With great attention and foresight, the Rai Group has decided to entrust the international sales of new films to Rai Cinema, while the business related to libraries will continue to be managed by Rai Com.
This is not comparable to the SACIS era. The international distribution market has changed significantly in recent years, and the pandemic has reduced the theatrical business just as new film industries were emerging on the global stage, making competition more challenging. It had become common practice for independent producers to turn to large foreign operators, an unfavorable aspect that has represented a limitation for our industry. As is well known, Rai Cinema produces a vast number of films, and we believe that dedicating a portion of these films to foreign markets is a beneficial choice for the entire industry and an effort to provide greater opportunities for Italian films to be seen abroad. Therefore, we decided to take on this challenge.
We launched with a lineup of around 10 films during the last Berlinale, including Gloria! by Margherita Vicario and An Ode to Naples by Trudie Styler. Since then, we have added new significant titles, including Gianni Amelio’s latest film in competition at Venice, Sara Fgaier’s debut feature already in competition at Locarno, and many other important titles to be presented in the future, such as the upcoming film by Roberto Andò featuring Ficarra and Picone with Toni Servillo. These films vary in type and genre, and they reflect our editorial choices, which are consistently respected even in international distribution, always aimed at supporting the Italian film industry.
Obviously, this is a new business area within Rai Cinema, but we remain committed to the principles that a company like Rai Cinema must uphold regarding the quality of content and respect for the audience. So far, we are satisfied; we have successfully sold our films in over 70 territories, but we are fully aware that much work remains to be done to firmly establish our brand within international markets.
TFV: Over the last few years, Italian cinema has increased its global profile with the efforts of DGCA-MIC and Roberto Stabile to promote Italian film internationally. Have these international efforts to strengthen the Italian film industry been reflected in domestic production and box office results?
No doubt these great efforts to give international visibility to Italian films have led to increased curiosity toward those same films by domestic audiences. The constant efforts to support Italian films internationally have a multiplicative effect in terms of the visibility and awareness they give to these films in the eyes of the Italian public. We are sure that this contributes to create a climate of trust toward certain names and products, which then become more easily recognizable by Italian viewers.
Sicuramente i grandi sforzi fatti per dare visibilità internazionale ai film italiani hanno contribuito a incrementare la curiosità da parte del pubblico nazionale. Il lavoro costante per sostenere i titoli della produzione italiana anche a livello internazionale ha un effetto moltiplicatore in termini di visibilità e di riconoscibilità di questi titoli che influisce sicuramente anche sul pubblico italiano. Siamo certi che questo contribuisce a creare un clima di fiducia intorno ad alcuni nomi e ad alcuni prodotti che in questo modo diventano più facilmente riconoscibili anche agli occhi degli spettatori italiani.
TFV: Are you anticipating seeing greater international box office successes and/or more films sold directly to international streaming companies?
I believe that the movie theater is the venue par excellence where a film should be seen. Therefore, a film’s platform or streaming success depends directly on that film’s previous success in the theaters, on its reception by the public, and on the word of mouth that was generated by theater goers.
Io credo che la sala sia il luogo per eccellenza dove vedere un film, e di conseguenza il successo che può avere un film su una piattaforma o in streaming, dipende direttamente dal successo che quel film ha avuto precedentemente al cinema, da come è stato accolto dal pubblico e dal passaparola che ha generato tra gli spettatori.
TFV: RAI and RAI Cinema have had a steady, successful run these last years and it seems there is common thought regarding the film industry and production. What challenges do you see down the road for Rai Cinema domestically?
The challenge we are facing is the same faced by the entire Italian film industry: that is, to successfully increase Italian cinema’s market share and to return to pre-pandemic box office levels in Italy.
Moreover, with Rai Cinema, we are aiming to bring the great stories of our authors to as wide a public as possible. And last but not least, we are constantly looking for new, emerging directors who could throw the basis of the cinema of the future.
La nostra sfida è la sfida di tutta l’industria italiana, ossia quella di riuscire a incrementare la quota di mercato del cinema italiano per contribuire a far sì che il box office in Italia torni ai livelli che aveva pre-pandemia Covid.
Inoltre, con Rai Cinema puntiamo a portare le grandi storie dei nostri autori al pubblico più ampio possibile e, terza ma non ultima sfida, lavoriamo costantemente per trovare nuovi registi emergenti che possano costruire le basi del cinema di domani.
TFV: RAI Cinema has a significant presence in Venice this year, what are you looking forward to and anticipating?
For the 81st Venice International Film Festival, 24 films, documentaries, and shorts were selected that Rai Cinema helped produce. Of these, eleven were made by female directors and five will be distributed by 01 Distribution in Italian theaters.
Four of our films are currently competing in the main event. They are directed by generationally diverse male and female directors whose work, though following different paths, revolve around events from Italian history: Gianni Amelio’s Campo Di Battaglia (Battlfield); Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio; Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s Iddu (Sicilian Letters), and Giulia Louise Steigerwalt’s Diva Futura.
Moreover, we bring Pablo Larraín’s much-anticipated Maria to Venice. Rai Cinema is sole distributor in Italy for this film, which is the first international big film that we have produce with Fremantle. 01 Distribution will be in charge of premiering this film in Italian theaters.
At Venice Film Festival, we will be with many of the authors with whom Rai Cinema has built a very close relationship over the years, like Marco Bellocchio, Pupi Avati (who’ll be closing the Festival), Francesca Comencini, and Valerio Mastrandrea, just to name a few.
What we are hoping for for all these films, besides awards, is that the Festival will give them great visibility, which will then push and sustain them throughout the year as they are released in theaters. An important showcase like Venice will no doubt help many of these films circulate more easily in various international festival and market circuits.
All’81. Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia sono stati selezionati 24 titoli che Rai Cinema ha contribuito a produrre, tra film, documentari e cortometraggi; undici di questi sono firmati da registe, cinque li distribuiremo nei cinema italiani con 01 Distribution.
Quattro dei nostri film gareggiano in questi giorni nel Concorso principale, sono opere dirette da autori e autrici di generazioni diverse che, pur seguendo percorsi distinti, ruotano su vicende che rimandano alla Storia italiana: CAMPO DI BATTAGLIA di Gianni Amelio; VERMIGLIO di Maura Delpero; IDDU di Fabio Grassadonia e Antonio Piazza e DIVA FUTURA di Giulia Louise Steigerwalt. Inoltre, sempre in Concorso, accompagneremo l’attesissimo MARIA di Pablo Larraín, il film è un’esclusiva per l’Italia Rai Cinema e ci vede produttivamente insieme a Fremantle per la prima volta per un grande film internazionale. Con 01 Distribution cureremo in Italia anche l’uscita nelle sale.
Alla Mostra di Venezia saremo al fianco anche di molti degli autori con i quali Rai Cinema ha costruito negli anni un rapporto di collaborazione molto stretto, come Marco Bellocchio, Pupi Avati che chiude il Festival, Francesca Comencini, Valerio Mastandrea, per citarne alcuni.
Quello che ci auguriamo per tutte queste opere, al netto di eventuali premi, è che possano avere qui al Festival una grande visibilità. Una visibilità che faccia da traino e sostegno durante tutto l’anno quando questi film usciranno al cinema. Inoltre, una vetrina così importante come quella di Venezia può sicuramente essere di aiuto a molti di questi film per girare con più facilità nei circuiti dei vari festival e mercati internazionali.
TFV: Reflecting back to our Venice interview last year, what accomplishments stand out? What are you most proud of this year?
We are happy to continue to represent, thanks to the results we’ve reached, a point of stability for the Italian production system. This time last year, we presented Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano here in Venice, which we had the pleasure of accompanying with an intense promotional campaign all the way to its nomination for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. That was an opportunity for us to meet millions of spectators at festivals around the world and to bring, yet again, the quality and force of our cinema to the attention of the international film industry, particularly at an edition that included among the competitors some of the topmost directors and works.
Siamo soddisfatti di continuare a rappresentare, grazie ai risultati raggiunti, un punto di equilibrio per il sistema produttivo italiano. Lo scorso anno, proprio in questo periodo, presentavamo qui al Lido il film Io Capitano di Matteo Garrone che abbiamo avuto il piacere di accompagnare, attraverso un’intensa campagna promozionale, fino alla cinquina per il Premio Oscar 2024 al Miglior Film Internazionale. Un’occasione che ci ha permesso di incontrare milioni di spettatori nei festival di tutto il mondo e di portare, ancora una volta, all’attenzione della cinematografia internazionale la qualità e la forza del nostro cinema, in particolare in un’edizione che includeva tra i concorrenti registi e opere di altissimo livello.
