13/06/2005

A call to the televisions was launched during the Italian/French Cinema Forum (Rome 9/10 June) by Adriana Chiesa Di Palma, the executive director of AIP Italia and the vice-president of Efea (European Film Export Association). Here is an extract of it: "I want to make the most of the presence of such a qualified and powerful audience in order to resolutely put forward a concept based on a crucial point which establishes the difficulty of our works' marketing: I am referring to the generally speaking French, Italian and European films' rights purchase by television channels.

In order to reach tomorrow's public, i.e. the people who will go in the coming cinemas, television must devote a certain amount of broadcasting hours to European cinema. The screens distributors would be encouraged to buy Italian and French films if the buyers and TV programme planners of those countries take into account the cultural and economic importance of our products' broadcasting.

I won't give any figures or quotas now but I can confirm that European films' broadcasting is still very weak and when you look at programmes' origins, you can see that the American cinema still dominates the European market.

So here is a message for all TV channels, a message that is not aimed at fuelling polemics but a strong and determined call to hold a dialog, to collaborate, to foster and to built with TV channels an «area» for our Italian, French and European cinema and to increment the expression of ideas that reflect our European culture."