Audiences bring L'estate di mio fratello to theatres
The paths for a film are infinite but it often happens that a particular film does not find its “natural” way to distribution (i.e., to theatres) despite its unquestionable quality. Such is the case with L'estate di mio fratello (lit. “The Summer of My Brother”), directed by Pietro Reggiani and produced by Nuvola Film, which has picked up numerous awards – first among them being a Special Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and at Montreal’s Festival du Monde – yet was never released theatrically.
Under the motto "if distribution companies won’t come to audiences, audiences will become distribution companies", the newly founded association SelfCinema decided to "adopt" the film and aid its distribution, overcoming the difficulties of the market.
Their approach is to pre-sell tickets to the film to potential filmgoers (through the site www.selfcinema.it and an increasing number of sales locations). "The donations, of €6 each, make up a minimum guarantee with which to persuade exhibitors to give the film a week of programming", said the organizers of the initiative. "The same operation is repeated in all major Italian cities and the film thus secures a national release. If the film is worthy, if audiences and critics like it, it begins to stand on its own two feet: reviews and word-of-mouth will lead other people to see it and other cinemas will screen it".
The first Italian experience of this kind, to which SelfCinema openly refers, was by the association Myself, which backed the release of Vittorio Moroni’s Tu devi essere il lupo and managed to be achieve over 25,000 admissions for the film.
For more information, please contact:
giuliamerenda@selfcinema.it
+ 39 3332773590
(Translated from Italian)
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