New suggestions to support national Italian cinema emerged from the panel “Italian productions and new narrative languages”, organised by the magazine Box Office in collaboration with Anica and Anec, which opened the Ciné - Giornate estive di Cinema di Riccione (1-4 July). Taking part in the meeting were Rai Cinema’s administrative director Paolo Del Brocco; screenwriter Isabella Aguilar; Annamaria Morelli, administrative director of The Apartment; Giampaolo Letta, vice president and administrative director at Medusa Film; Marta Donzelli, producer at Vivo Film.

The organisers of the panel recalled data from early 2025 related to the Italian film market, which was mostly supported by national films (43% of the total money earned in the first trimester), with the success of titles such as Madly [+lee también:
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Isabella Aguilar - who confirmed her talent with the recent success of Madly, directed by Paolo Genovese (€6 million in profit) and co-written by Aguilar with Lucia Calamaro, Paolo Costello and Flaminia Gessi - opened the debate by claiming that the general public “who we are lucky to reach with our stories” is the sum of more niche, smaller groups who like different things. “Madly was written with nuanced jokes in order to resonate with different sensibilities and ironies. When writing a screenplay, it is necessary to think about the ‘ideal spectator’ for that film. It isn’t simply about pinpointing a core target, but rather acting in a vital way to build stories that can raise interest in a stratified audience”. Aguilar cited the authors at Pixar and DreamWorks Animation as “masters” of that vision: “their animated films are never just films for children but instead take care of adults with ‘gifts’ conceived specifically for them in their writing”.

Paolo Del Brocco highlighted how necessary it is to take risks in screenwriter and production, going beyond the confines of genre. “One has to connect narrative depth with emotional impact. To put together authorship and popularity. Today, content is created to last a few seconds; cinema must differentiate itself to create impactful stories that move people. We have to be more responsible in our choice of projects, taking more time to let the potential of a film fully mature.”

Del Brocco, who in recent years has followed the Oscar campaigns for Io capitano [+lee también:
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Annamaria Morelli from The Apartment, a company from the Fremantle group “focused on great auteurs, in order not to produce standardised films”, also agrees on the importance of investing in experimentation with new languages and in the search for new auteurs. “Investing in new directors is crucial for the future of cinema, even if not all the films by new authors are successful at the box-office”. For Morelli, it is necessary to “rationalise the number of films to produce, but without forgetting that cinema is an industry that creates work, a strategic asset with a high multiplier: for each euro invested into the production of a film, €3,54 are generated”. Morelli, who has co-produced Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, La grazia, which will open the Venice Film Festival, has also highlighted “the fruitful change of perspective” that occurs when a great auteur is also the producer of their own film.

Giampaolo Letta added how important it is to give films an international breath, “forging alliances with European partners to give our productions major visibility”. Marta Donzelli, who with Vivo Film gave their starts to the multi award-winning filmmakers Laura Bispuri (Sworn Virgin [+lee también:
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“The films that have been successful in the past few years had a cinematic specificity, that extra je ne sais quoi that prompted spectators to see them in the cinema. They also had a social aspect, they asked questions about our society.”

Regarding the problems related to distribution, Donzelli recalled the 149 Italian films, decidedly too many, that had a very limited release last year. “Us producers must create an alliance with distributors in order for films to find a place in cinemas and get some visibility.” Donzelli appreciated the obligation of a binding agreement with a distributor recently inserted into the tax credit regulations, a fundamental instrument solicited by Del Brocco and Letta in order to support the promotion of films and their release in cinemas.