The “De Rome à Paris” film festival held in Paris from 13 to 17 December has just wound up. The festival is entirely dedicated to Italian film productions and is co-organised by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MIBAC) and ANICA (National Association of Film and Audiovisual Industry) in partnership with the Italian Embassy in Paris, the ICE Foreign Trade Agency, the Istituto Luce Cinecittà, the UNEFA (National Union of Film and Audiovisual Exporters), the CNC (National Cinema Centre) and UniFrance (an organization for promoting French films outside France).
The Festival offered a dense programme of Italian films never screened in France, starting with the debut showing of “Aspromonte, la terra degli ultimi” (“Aspromonte: Land of the Forgotten”) by Mimmo Calopresti, who came to Paris for the occasion as the screening was preceded by the conferral of a special lifetime achievement award to the leading actress, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, which was followed by a networking event to promote Italian cinema in France attended by approximately 200 representatives of the French cinema industry, actors, directors, distributors, and members of French and Italian cultural institutions and of specialised media.
Alongside the public screening, two professional workshops were held to mainly get the public and French professionals acquainted with the work of emerging young authors with the aim of promoting the distribution of Italian films in France and strengthening the cultural cooperation between the two Countries.
Particular interest was raised by the round table on bilateral cooperation in the area of the cinema, with the contribution, among others, of the Head of International Relations of ANICA, Roberto Stabile, the Director of the Directorate General for Cinema at the MIBAC, Maria Giuseppina Troccoli, the Director General of the CNC, Olivier Henrard, and the Director General of UniFrance, Gilles Renouard.
In her opening remarks, Ambassador Teresa Castaldo recalled how cinema constitutes a sector that is emblematic of the cultural and also economic ties between the two Countries, with a very positive fallout. France confirms to be Italy’s leading partner in the “seventh art” and their long-standing cooperation (the two Countries’ first agreement on this matter dates back to 1946) is destined to become stronger in the forthcoming years thanks to the ad hoc Fund created by MIBAC and CNC to foster Franco-Italian film co-productions and technical and artistic cooperation between the two Countries that was presented at the 76th Venice Film Festival.
In sharing her broadly positive comments on the cooperation with Paris, Ms Troccoli of the Directorate General for Cinema at the MIBAC recalled the internationalisation efforts made by Italian cinema, also thanks to an updated regulatory framework, and illustrated the innovative legislative provisions, including the fund for productions to be exported abroad and the tax credit for domestic productions, in addition to the role played by “cinema commissions” to attract the production of films and audiovisuals to Italy.
