Good news for Franco-Italian cinema.
The National Museum of Cinema in Turin and Bonlieu Scène Nationale, in Annecy, have decided to join forces to found a film training program for emerging Italian and French producers.
This initiative aims to promote
"a new generation of professionals"
and to strengthen the competitiveness of transalpine co-productions on the international market, the press release reads.
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One training, two courses
The project was born from the example of TorinoFilmLab, a film laboratory offering various lessons, ranging from screenplay to directing and production.
It notably supports filmmakers working on their first and second fiction feature films.
Alpes Films Lab will offer two types of teaching.
The first, said professional and lasting six months,
"will begin in April 2021. The teaching team will be made up of forty-eight supervisors, twenty-four Italians and twenty-four French, and the program will be will focus on the development of feature films, ”
critic Francesco Giai Via, artistic director of the Annecy Italian Film Festival and responsible for training
, explains to
Figaro
.
The courses will take place, alternately, in Annecy and Turin.
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The students will be partly seasoned producers, wishing to develop internationally or acquire the dual cinematographic culture offered by the course.
They will have to go through a demanding selection.
Only eight applicants from each country will be selected.
What does not cool the enthusiasts:
"We opened the applications ten days ago and already have a certain number of files to examine"
, enthuses the director of the Annecy festival, recalling that the deadline for deposit is set for March 1.
The lucky ones will then join the first session of the project, which will end in November 2021. It will focus on the development of eight feature film projects with potential for cross-border co-production.
More vague, a second educational offer will be reserved for high school and college students from both countries.
Lasting two years, it will offer image education workshops, orientation sessions and study trips.
And although there is, for the moment, no real diploma in the key, the projects carried out within the framework of the training will benefit from a label, attesting their level.
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European funding
"The goal would be to work, over two years, with 8,000 students"
, ambitions Francesco Giai Via.
The initiative has generated enthusiasm among public investors.
Supported by the Interreg-ALCOTRA program, a European fund dedicated to Franco-Italian cooperation, the project has a budget of € 797,550.
In France, the departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-Maritimes are taking part in the adventure.
In Italy, support comes from the provinces of Turin and Cuneo (Piedmont), Imperia (Liguria), as well as the autonomous region of Valle d'Aosta.
Not surprisingly, this enthusiasm when you know the ancient film collaboration between the two Latin territories.
From Luchino Visconti to Nanni Moretti via Marco Ferreri and Mario Monicelli, from Jean-Luc Godard to Georges Lautner via Bertrand Blier, many directors have mixed productions, actors, composers, Italian and French technicians.
"The link between our two countries is historic
, insists Francesco Giai Via,"
the first cinematographic co-productions were initiated, in Europe, by a bilateral Franco-Italian agreement, signed in 1949. "
