Even Hollywood is recognizing the Italian touch. In recent days at the Neue House in Los Angeles, leading U.S. TV series producers gathered for the ITTV International Forum, a two-day event divided into nine discussion panels where more than forty speakers reflected on the main challenges and opportunities in the global entertainment industry at a time of great transformation.
The event was organized by Italian-American journalist Valentina Martelli, founder of ITTV, a California-based company founded with the mission of building bridges in the world of TV series, and its co-founder screenwriter Cristina Scognamillo. Also among the participants was the Friulian publishing house Kepown.
“Hollywood is looking to Italy,” said Elisabetta de Dominis, founder of Ad Futuram Memoriam srl, which owns Kepown’s social platform, at the end of the presentation of the video ”Words Become Words.” “It seeks originality, because competition from Turkish and Korean TV series is strong. And it questions the genres that the viewer demands. But of one thing everyone is certain: quality cannot be waived. The vision, awarded by the European Union, is to give everyone the opportunity to be able to write their own history and leave it to future generations: memory is the only form of immortality we mortals have. The mission is the preservation and enhancement of the culture of Western civilization because America and Italy have common roots. The goal is internationalization through the sharing that Kepown’s social structure offers.”
The focus of the discussion in Los Angeles was the strategies adopted by Hollywood in the face of last year’s strikes, focusing on emerging advertising models related to streaming platforms that sustain themselves through advertising. An analysis in particular on the dynamics of content distribution between film and television. Finally, sports, which has become central to the entertainment industry in both unscripted and fiction formats, was also discussed.
“[The event] was an opportunity to take stock of what has happened over the past year in film, television and the technologies that support them,” said Valentina Martelli. “Hollywood has been rocked by strikes, consolidations, mass layoffs and the exodus of talent who are now looking to international markets for new opportunities. Our goal is to stimulate these discussions and facilitate the creation of new business.”
What’s more, with Italy’s participation, the potential of international co-productions to preserve creative autonomy and promote cultural diversity was also explored, taking advantage of cutting-edge technologies and multinational collaborations and the building of bridges from one country to another that is crucial to progress.
