|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rai Cinema, combining product quality with the ability to generate financial returns, proudly supports Italian film-making by investing in young and not-so young film makers who have created the most recent chapter in the history of Italian cinema. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rai Cinema
While being forced to cope with
constantly a falling investment capacity,
Rai Cinema succeeded in maintaining a
leading role in terms of weight and
consideration thanks to a careful buying
policy, cutting out a space of its own in
a highly competitive market, thanks to
consolidated relationships and fast
action.
Rai Cinema pays constant attention to
the continuing evolution of the types of
broadcasting rights that can be
purchased, considering the
consolidation of ever new forms of
exploitation and a Rai Group strategy
based on the development of DTT and
new business models and on-line
offerings.
In detail, the company renewed the
2010/2012 three-year USA
production agreement with CBS (Rai
Cinema rights for 2011-2013). The
agreement aims to guarantee the
validity of the offering of Rai
programming with the supply of the
TV series created for CBS, the
American network which is most in
line with Rai' s broadcasting aims in
terms of quality and quantity. Also
with CBS, the series Beverly Hills
90210 and Harper's Island, both
broadcast by RaiDue during the year,
were confirmed.
The relationship with Disney, which
continues despite difficulties due to the
incursions of the competition, led to the
formalisation of a package made up of
a selected product featuring two brand
new films, Enchanted - Come d'incanto
and Tinker Bell, fourteen short films
produced by Pixar and an important
selection of renewed films, including the
timeless Pretty Woman and Mary
Poppins.
The new series purchased from Disney
included the brilliant detective series
Castle, the romantic Cupid and the
adventurous swashbuckling series for
younger viewers, Legend of the Seeker,
with returns by some of RaiDue's
favourite names for the latest series of
Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer,
Private Practice, Army Wives,
Desperate Housewives and Brothers &
Sisters.
Rai Cinema has also maintained
constant relations with other majors:
several Hollywood classics came from
Paramount (Operation Petticoat, The
Mating Season, Roman Holiday, The
Quiet Man and To Catch a Thief), a
cycle of films with Jerry Lewis (thirteen
titles), a cycle of Westerns (High Noon,
Distant Drums, Shane and Rio Grande)
and more recent evergreens (Saturday
Night Fever, Flashdance, Terms of
Endearment); from Warner come the
continuations of two of its best and most
long-running series, Cold Case and
Without a Trace, both renewed for the
seventh season, together with the sitcom
Two and a Half Men; from Universal
comes the eighth season of Law &
Order.
Numerous European television
productions have been guaranteed to
Rai Cinema stores.
Once again, Germany is the main
source. From Beta, with which the
company has worked in partnership for
decades, come twelve new episodes of
the detective series Rex, which RaiUno
will be broadcasting, as always, during
prime time. Another long-standing
partner of Rai Cinema, the public
network ZDF, proposes about 240 hours
of excellent quality television
programming: the new episodes of the
detective series Un caso per due,
Squadra speciale Lipsia, Il commissario
Kress and the brand new Soko Koln, the
family series Il nostro amico Charlie and
the collection of TV movies Wild Rose
Valley.
Other European series come from the
BBC, such as Survivors, the new
episodes of Primeval and the collection
of three TV movies Wallander, an Anglo-
Swedish co-production starring Kenneth
Branagh.
As regards film premiers acquired by Rai
Cinema, these include the Oscarwinning
Slumdog Millionaire, the
Golden Lion-winning The Wrestler, the
Golden Palm winner for the best
screenplay Le Silence de Lorna, the
winner of the Special Prize of the
Venetian jury Cous Cous, the Golden
Globe winner and Oscar nominee for
best foreign film Waltz with Bashir and
Into the Wild.
The forecast development of the digital
theme-specific offering is increasing the
demand for films which, thanks to this
platform can obtain prestigious
exposure, with variety and extension
which would otherwise be unavailable,
without paying, to film lovers.
Classic films are an integral part of
this design and occupied a significant
part of Rai Cinema's activity for 2009:
from Hollywood, we ought to highlight
the important acquisition of the ITV Global library (about two hundred
titles ranging from Alred Hitchcock to
Laurence Olivier); among the Italian
libraries, proposed by distributors such
as Dania, Videa CDE, Istituto Luce
and Lanterna, selected titles suited to
programming in cycles, from detective
titles to comedy, have been
purchased.
Lastly, Rai Cinema pursued its
consolidated procurement policy of the
so-called "full rights", launched in 2001
and aimed at the acquisition of all the
rights to exploit foreign titles in Italy for
a relevant period of time.
This method of acquisition allows the
identification of "case-by-case" products
and the formation of a valuable library
with very long average license periods
(12-15 years).
This has allowed 01 Distribution to
create composite lists, through which
it has been possible to vehicle Italianproduced
films in cinemas, flanking
them with mostly American titles of
different genres with a strong
audience appeal. The titles purchased
in 2009 included: The Ghost by
Roman Polanski (which has just won
the Silver Bear for best director at the
Berlin Film Festival) and The Book of
Eli by brothers Allen and Albert
Hughes.
2009 was yet another year as leader for
Rai Cinema branded films.
The prolific director Pupi Avati continued
his excellent relationship with Italian
audiences, returning to his beloved
Bologna with the comedy Gli amici del
bar Margherita, together with an
excellent cast of famous names (Diego
Abatantuono, Fabio De Luigi, Laura
Chiatti, Luigi Lo Cascio, Neri Marcorè
and Luisa Ranieri).
Another outstanding cast, all-female
this time (Margherita Buy, Paola
Cortellesi, Carolina Crescentini, Isabella Ferrari, Marina Massironi,
Claudia Pandolfi and Alba
Rorhwacher), starred in the film by Enzo
Monteleone Due partite, based on
Cristina Comencini's successful play.
The season of events began with the
invitation to the Cannes Film Festival of
the fantastic film by one the Italian
masters of film, Marco Bellocchio, who,
with Vincere (the unknown story of the
first wife and illegitimate son of Benito
Mussolini, left to die in a mental asylum
for political reasons) obtained
unanimous and enthusiastic approval by
the Italian and international critics.
Francesca Comencini's film Lo spazio
bianco, based on the novel of the same
name by Valeria Parrella and starring a
remarkably talented Margherita Buy,
was presented in the competition at the
Venice Film Festival. The film won the
Pro Life award.
A mention of merit goes to the boxoffice
winner (top place for the Italian
list of 01 Distribution) Ex by Fausto
Brizzi, which opened the sophisticated
Italian comedy genre, without vulgarity
but with lots of Italian flavour.
While the market in general registered a
decline in the number of viewers for
Italian products, it enjoyed an increase
in the offering in terms of original
proposals, films by new talents and
more consolidated authors, genre films
which reached the cinema circuit in
much greater numbers than before in
the past decade.
Also of importance is the situation
regarding second works, such as
Massimo Venier's comedy Generazione
Mille Euro, Alza la testa by Alessandro
Angelini, La straniera by Marco Turco
and Fortapasc by Marco Risi, on the
tragic death of journalist Giancarlo
Siani, and L'uomo che verrà by Giorgio
Diritti, which was extremely well received at the Rome Film Festival, where it won
the Jury's Special Prize.
As regards films shot in 2009 and on
release during the first half of 2010 Rai
Cinema co-produced some of the most
important names in the Italian film
industry.
Ferzan Ozpetek, after an incursion into
drama with Un giorno perfetto, returns
to his favourite subjects, with the
comedy Mine vaganti, set in the
Salento region: another family-based
story full of comic moments and
personalities. The leading role is taken
by Riccardo Scamarcio, flanked by
Alessandro Preziosi. The film was very
much appreciated at the Berlin Film
Festival, participating outside the
competition.
Gabriele Salvatores, with Happy family,
based on a theatrical comedy, directed
a fabulous cast: Diego Abatantuono,
Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Margherita Buy,
Fabio De Luigi and Carla Signoris,
together again for a slick , brilliantly
composed comedy characterised by
irresistible humour.
Daniele Luchetti directed a dramatic yet
comic film, La nostra vita, presenting a
light and clearly outlined story of a
young man in difficulty, left alone to
bring up his young children, saved by
his tenacity and the unconditional
support of his family.
The projects shared by Rai Cinema in
2009 on which shooting will begin in
2010 include Habemus Papam by
Nanni Moretti, produced by
Fandango, with Michel Piccoli in the
role of the pope suffering an identity
crisis and the director himself in that of
the psychoanalyst who is supposed to
help him.
Pupi Avati is currently working on his
new creature, a heart wrenching love
story entitled Una sconfinata giovinezza,
with Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Francesca
Neri. The film should be ready for the
next Venice Film Festival.
The relationship between Rai Cinema
and Rai Fiction � which in the past has
produced titles such as La meglio
gioventù and I Vicerè � continued, with
the historical saga of Federico
Barbarossa and Alberto da Giussano
directed by Renzo Martinelli and with the
great epic on the Italian Risorgimento
directed by Mario Martone, Noi
credevamo, inspired by the homonymous
romance written by Anna Banti.
Special relevance was assumed by two
projects realised in 2009: for Telethon
and RaiUno, the short Il Turno by Filippo
Soldi, the story of a war reporter who, at
the age of forty, upon the death of his
father, finds out that he is affected by
the same genetic illness; in the year of
the sixtieth anniversary of the
declaration of human rights, the
collective film entitled All human rights for all, in which directors of the calibre
of Vittorio De Seta, Wilma Labate,
Daniele Luchetti, Marina Spada,
Giovanni Veronesi and Luciano Emmer,
who has just recently died, together with
numerous others, presented the
individual articles of the Charter in their
own personal way.
Lastly, the relationship with Teche for the
production of documentaries led to the
creation of Come mio padre by Stefano
Mordini, at the Torino Film Festival,
outside the competition, and to the
development of a project on 1960
directed by the Oscar-winner Gabriele
Salvatores.
The full rights ad production activity
described allowed 01 Distribution to
achieve sixth place in the special film distribution classification for the 2009
season.
The year was characterised by two
completely different halves: in the first
half, a series of brilliant results,
particularly for Journey to the Centre of
the Earth 3D, Valkyrie and Ex, made it
possible to occupy first place for almost
six months; in the second however, the
presence of various films with a difficult
commercial outcome took 01
Distribution to sixth place overall.
From the beginning of the 2010 season
it should be back towards the top of
classification. The new films by
Salvatores, Ozpetek and Luchetti,
respectively Happy Family, Mine Vaganti
and La nostra vita, together with three
important international titles like The
Book of Eli, The Ghost Writer by Roman
Polansky and Edge of Darkness, all on
release by the end of May 2010,
promise excellent box-office results.
As regards the home video segment,
this is still suffering, due to increasingly
devastating levels of piracy which have
reduced the rental market, which was
previously a flourishing channel, by
50%.
Rai Cinema product on Rai networks:
- 17% of network programming throughout
the day (4,446 hours)
- 29% of prime time programming (638
hours)
- 623 'pieces' (films, TV movies and series)
with 385 prime time placements
Film:
- 156 prime time placements, of which:
- 40 on RaiUno (18.5% audience share)
- 36 on RaiDue (9.9% audience share)
- 80 on RaiTre (8.3% audience share)
TV movies:
- 9 evenings on RaiUno with an average
share of 18%;
- 17 evenings on RaiDue with an
average share of 10%.
Series:
- 203 evenings, mainly on RaiDue
- 9.4% average share for RaiDue
- 6.9% share for RaiTre