Rai Cinema

Generally speaking, despite a constantly 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 and constantly evolving market, thanks to consolidated relationships and fast action.

Rai Cinema continues to pay increasing attention to the different types of rights available for purchase, against the consolidation of more and more new ways of exploitation and a strategy of the Rai Group based on the development of DTT and renewed business models.

In 2011, Rai Cinema’s purchasing policy was aimed at strengthening relations with those suppliers that offer a particularly rich and varied production, known to be successful on the Rai networks. Such suppliers include the American CBS Corporation and Disney and the German Beta/Eos, Telepool and ZDF.

New entries include the first big contract with HBO entered into by Rai. HBO is one of the most important US cable broadcasters: a qualitatively excellent content provider, producer of outstanding television films and series, among the most appreciated in the world, capable of transferring a high return on image to the channels that broadcast these productions.

Another element of correct profitable policy, albeit in an objectively difficult situation, is represented by the relationship entered into with Sony/Columbia, the big Hollywood Major, aimed at purchasing programmes to broadcast on the Rai networks.

We also reached an agreement with Warner Bros. featuring the continuation of essential series and traditional appointments for Rai 2’s late evening slot.

With MGM an agreement has been drawn up allowing the entry of a quantity of product which, in terms of variety and quality, responds perfectly to the programming needs and requirements of the general-interest and specialised digital channels.

Also with NBC/Universal and BBC, profitable relationships were maintained for the procurement of series and miniseries.

As regards Italian distributors, agreements were entered into with several Italian producers for the procurement mainly of high-quality film titles but with a strong commercial potential.

In 2011, Rai Cinema continued the procurement policy launched in 2011 and now consolidated, aimed at purchasing the so-called full rights to exploitation in Italy of appropriately selected foreign products for a relevant period of time.

This purchasing method allows the identification of products and the formation of a collection of important titles for a very long average licencing period (12 – 15 years) and has allowed Rai Cinema to create composite lists which can be used to carry Italianproduced films in cinemas (especially in the Multiplex segment), flanking them with different genres, most of which American and of considerable appeal to the general public.
This purchasing policy, in a context characterised by a lack of resources, has turned out to be particularly valid also in relation to the needs of the Rai networks, being capable of supplying a significant level of satisfaction of television broadcasting requirements, especially in the light of the multiplication of Rai’s multiplatform offering.

Titles purchased in 2011 include The Ides of March by and with George Clooney, Snow White by Tarsem Singh with Julia Roberts and Cosmopolis by David Cronenberg with Robert Pattinson.

As far as results are concerned, from the Palme d’Or at Cannes for The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, which – having been released just after presentation at the festival – obtained an excellent result at the box office, to the opening of the Venice Film Festival with The Ides of March by George Clooney, which had a brilliant theatrical performance during the Christmas period, to the Oscar Nominations, which witnessed the triumph of Hugo Cabret by Scorsese, with 11 nominations, for a total of 16 nominations for the films on our list (11 Hugo Cabret, 3 Tree of Life, 1 The Ides of March, 1 Margin Call), 2011 was a year of exceptional satisfaction for the purchase of Full Rights, the benefits of which are already evident in 2012: Hugo Cabret, released on 3 February 2012, was awarded five Oscars and is obtaining clamorous success among critics and the public.

2011 was a year full of satisfaction for our film production, thanks to acknowledgements received by the films distributed and produced by Rai.

Presented in Berlin in the Panorama section, Giulio Manfredonia’s film with Antonio Albanese, Qualunquemente, took 16 million euros at the box office, occupying first place in the ranking of takings for the year by Rai Cinema.

The Cannes Film Festival witnessed participation of the new film by Nanni Moretti, Habemus Papam. The film received a very warm welcome during the official screening and took almost 6 million euros at the box office.

As regards the Venice Film Festival, the films that participated in the official competition were Quando la notte by Cristina Comencini with Filippo Timi and Claudia Pandolfi (in which an impossible love story provides the background for the awkward subject of post natal depression), and the film L’ultimo terrestre (a moving sciencefiction film on grace and the sense of humanity; the leading actor Gabriele Spinelli made an excellent debut) which represents the anomalous directing debut of a great Italian comic strip writer, Gipi (Gianni Pacinotti).

At the Rome Festival, L’Industriale by Giuliano Montaldo was presented on a non-competitive basis.
The film talks about the economic and human crisis of the Italian business world, and obtained the unanimous consensus of public and critics alike.

Another box office success was released in the autumn, Ex-amici come prima, by the Vanzina brothers, with an impressive cast.

As regards films on which production work began or was completed in 2011, many are by great authors.

First of all, The Big House, the muchawaited film by Matteo Garrone, after the huge success of Gomorra. Ferzan Ozpetek finished shooting his ‘supernatural’ comedy La magnifica presenza.

Marco Tullio Giordana completed Romanzo di una strage, the reconstruction and interpretation of the dramatic events of Piazza Fontana.

Particular in the Italian panorama is the experience of Roberto Faenza, who shot Un giorno questo dolore ti sarà utile, based on the book by Cameron, entirely in the USA with an American cast of great actors. The film, in pure American ‘indie’ style was presented at noncompetitive level at the Rome Film Festival and goes on release in 2012.

The European co-productions of 2011 include: Bel Ami (based on Maupassant), an English co-production with an international cast of big names; Le premiere homme, a co-production with France for a great Italian director, Gianni Amelio, based on the posthumous novel by Camus and the sum of themes and poetic styles that have always been dear to the director; Romeo and Juliet, written by Oscarwinner Julian Fellows, directed by Carlo Carlei, with set and costume supervision by Milena Canonero. Almost all the leading actors are very young and are known by teenagers all over the work due to their participation in the best American and English TV series.

Lastly, we would like to remember Cesare deve morire, the film by the Taviani brothers, which represents the staging of Julius Caesar by a theatrical company of prisoners, invited to compete at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival where, as well as receiving a very warm welcome by international public and critics, it also won the Golden Bear.

2011 was characterised by the development of investment strategies and is the eleventh year of life of Rai Cinema, with the consolidation (in the Italian film system) of its role as a cultural and commercial leader of the Italian and foreign market.

This context is marked by the clear success of new directors, the confirmation of authors sustained by Rai and the programming and industrial launch of documentary products.

One of the objectives of Rai and Rai Cinema is to invest in new directors and 2011 was a year full of satisfactions in this sense.

Rai Cinema distributed the following films: Nessuno mi può giudicare directed by Massimiliano Bruno, which represents our best performance of 2011 in the category of new directors and the top in terms of box office takings in Italy, and Scialla directed by Francesco Bruni. After its triumphant success at the Venice Film Festival in the Controcampo section 2011 (third triumph by Rai Cinema in the Italian section of the Venice Film Festival), Scialla was presented at films all over the world, from Korea to the United States, from France to Spain, gathering awards and lots of consensus.

In 2011 Rai Cinema sustained the Italian film system also with specific reference to the co-production of important works initially distributed by other companies.

The new directors are then appointed by Rai to develop new projects for the future, as has happened with Massimiliano Bruno, Francesco Bruni, Valerio Mieli, Claudio Capellini and Michele Rho.
The search for the screenwriters of tomorrow also and particular regards the subjects tackled: the Italian film industry has, in accordance with the Rai’s strategic aims, to observe the current situation and also sustain creativity, telling our history while also telling thought-provoking stories or those with a literary inspiration. At the Festivals of Berlin, Cannes, Taormina, Locarno, Venice, Toronto, Rome and Turin, Rai Cinema received confirmation of the extensive appreciation of the selectors and the directors of the programming style used; there’s no festival in which the best production of Rai Cinema was not selected, so it was able to see the rewards earned by its selective and productive strategy.

At Venice 2011 Emanuele Crialese’s beautiful film Terraferma, won the Jury Award, and La Bas by Guido Lombardi won Best First Work, and the aforementioned Scialla by Francesco Bruni also triumphed.

Attention to Italian social matters convinced Rai Cinema to sustain the production of the film on the Parmalat case, Il Gioiellino by Andrea Molaioli, which garnered consensus and a dignified box office result.

In September 2012 Rai Cinema is going to launch the Low Budget project on the web, with the first five films produced in 2011. This is a further strategic development to identify genre talents at limited costs for exclusive distribution on line.

For the film market, 2011 ended with a drop in attendance of 8% compared to 2010: just over 100 million viewers with takings of about 660 million euros, 10% less than the previous year.

In this not particularly brilliant context, Rai Cinema, in a complete counter trend, grew compared with the previous year and took 4th place among distributors, with 11.5 million tickets sold, takings of over 70 million euros and a market share of about 12%.

The Italian Home Video market in 2011 closed with a negative result: -18% compared to 2010.

The determining factors were essentially piracy, which is constantly on the increase due to a lack of regulations and also due to the current economic recession and the decidedly lower offering of product compared to the previous year, in which the market received proposals of products like Avatar and the Twilight saga. Rental also suffered a further contraction due to the closure of one of the major distributors. A decidedly positive note was the increase to double figures in the sale of the BluRay formats.

The entity of this reduction is evidently contained compared to the overall negative result of the Italian home video market and this is determined by the significant influence of sales (sell-thru 80%) compared to rental (rental 20%).