It’s a special year for Italy, the Country in Focus at Berlinale 2024. Business Doc Europe reached out to Massimo Arvat, of Doc/it, Italy’s National Association of Docmakers, to discuss the non-fiction-related initiatives in place, the titles present in the official selection and most importantly, the current state of Italian documentary and Doc/it’s move towards greater internationalisation.
The first event hosted as part of this year’s Country in Focus initiative was the Producers’ Hub presentation “Film And Audiovisual Fund in Italy,” which took place in Gropius Bau on February 16 and examined the country’s rich financing landscape and its regulations, providing the attendees with a comprehensive overview of the benefits and perks of co-producing content with Italy.
Another core Industry event that saw Doc/it participation was the “AI for Audience Design in Documentary” session, held at the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation on 18 February. The talk focused on the role of AI in docmaking, touching on topics such as ethical dilemmas, opportunities, new advancements and the future impact on non-fiction storytelling. The panel, moderated by Alphapanda’s Joanna Solecka, saw the participation of Doc/it member and Graffiti Film Producer Enrica Capra, Largo.ai’s CEO Sami Arpa, and strategist and author Paul Rieth.
On 19 February Gropius Dome hosts the special event “Italian Cinema World Tour – Celebrating Connections,” a showcase organized by the Ministry of Culture and set to promote Italy’s audiovisual culture and professionals.
This year, Italy visits the German capital with two docs showcased in the gathering’s official selection, namely Costanza Quatriglio’s The Secret Drawer (co-produced with Switzerland) and Abel Ferrara’s Turn in the Wound (co-produced with the UK, Germany and USA). The first picture, produced by Indyca and sold by Dutch outfit Film Harbour, screened in the Forum strand of the festival and chronicles the director’s ageing father, famed Sicilian journalist Giuseppe Quatriglio, whose death during filming inspired an intimate examination of his turbulent life.
Meanwhile, Berlinale bills Ferrara’s latest effort as “a film about performance, poetry, music and the experience of people at war,” while “searching for meaning in the never-ending suffering and conflicts that echo the past.” The picture boasts the participation of Patti Smith, who recites works by Artaud, Daumal and Rimbaud, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as that of citizens and soldiers living in the combat zones in Ukraine.
Even though Doc/it doesn’t take part with an official delegation to the Berlinale, Massimo Arvat confirmed that several of its members are attending the activities organised by the festival and the EFM, including the aforementioned EFM session on AI. On the latter, he explains: “Our panel aimed to reframe the conversation towards the AI’s “positive potential,” [in particular] by examining how directors and producers can exploit this…to establish longer, deeper relationships with their audience. All of this, it’s happening in a [documentary] landscape that is continuously evolving in terms of both technology and storytelling.”
“Our presence in Berlin is part of the internationalisation path we’ve been backing over the years, which we consider a crucial activity. Doc/it aims to promote Italian documentary cinema beyond our national borders, taking part in international events through [the presence of] delegations attending foreign markets and having our say on hot topics of a global scale,” he adds.
For Arvat, 2023 has been a “moment of evolution” for Italian documentary. “The positive results are plain to see: the quality of Italian productions has been acknowledged by many festivals in Italy and worldwide, which is a sign of our creativity and our potential to tell stories that go beyond our national borders. The growth of streaming platforms gave us new opportunities in terms of visibility and distribution, allowing some Italian docs to intercept a wider audience. The development of Rai Documentari [the Italian pubcaster’s non-fiction arm] made the presence of docs within the public broadcasting’s offering stronger. Some documentary sub-genres such as the music docs achieved great box office results.”
“In 2023, the impulse given by our current Cinema and Audiovisual Law kept on stimulating the growth of independent productions. But there are also critical aspects that need to be analysed, in order to understand where 2024 will lead us to. For example, Rai Cinema’s budget cuts, Rai Cultura’s downsizing and Sky’s slower investments put at risk the ‘biodiversity potential’ of docs, which might make the landscape ruled by highly popular genres [such as] true crime, biographies, celeb-based docs and music docs,” he continues.
Moreover, the new Cinema Law might have a negative impact, reducing financing opportunities for independent producers and their most ambitious works, Arvat argues.
“Therefore, 2024 will be a crucial year. We hope that the positive trends recorded in 2023 will remain in place, perhaps with a stronger focus on technological and narrative innovation. The growing interest towards human rights, cultural diversity and sustainability may bring an even more diversified production landscape – and this can give a great contribution to the complex work of narrating reality and its issues. Fostering collaborations between Italian and international producers may be the key to increase the visibility of Italian docs worldwide, together with a stronger public backing of production and distribution,” he sums up.
