Conecta Fiction Sets Italy Focus, Launches Think Tank
MADRID — Eleonora Andreatta, director of RAI Fiction and one of the most influential TV executives in Italy, will head the Italian delegation at this month’s Conecta Fiction 3, the Europe-America TV series co-production and networking event which takes place this year in Pamplona.
This year, Conecta Fiction has selected as its European Focus Country, an initiative which will see the event analyzing the Italian drama series industry, its particularities and potential as a TV co-producer partner, and the talent of local creators.
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Italy joins Chile, already announced by Conecta as its American Focus Country.
Running June 17-20, Conecta Fiction 3 will kick-off with an inaugural gala at Pamplona’s Teatro Gayarre, with the screening of Finnish-Chilean series “Invisible Heroes,” a co-production between Finland’s Kaiho Republic and Chile’s Parox that was pitched two years ago as a project at Conecta’s Pitch Copro Series.
The political drama-thriller, set during Chile’s 1973 military coup, premiered in April on Finish pubcaster YLE; Chilevisión will broadcast the series in Chile.
One of the highlights of the meeting will be the first edition of Conecta Fiction Think Tank, sponsored by Spanish pubcaster RTVE, and designed for professionals who want to share and learn from the experience of important figures in the European and American audiovisual sectors.
Designed as an idea laboratory, the Think Tank will address key issues such as the concentration of production companies in big corporations, the role of independent producers, the consumption of fiction content by Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y and T, Millennials, iGen, Gen Z, content financing for different screens; and the future of linear TV as global platform frenemies.
The Think Tank meeting also takes in a visit to Navarra’s Bardenas Reales National Park, declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve and used as an iconic location of both Spanish and international film and TV productions such as “Game of Thrones,” “The Counselor,” “The World Is Not Enough” and “Mutant Action.”
Conclusions from the first edition of the Think Tank will be presented to all participants of Conecta Fiction 3 on Tuesday, June 18, as the first session of the event’s conference program.
Produced by Inside Content, and taking place in the Navarra city of Pamplona, after two years in Galicia’s Santiago de Compostela, Conecta Fiction offers both B2B meetings and conferences.
Tuesday June 18 will also be dedicated to Pitching sessions, encompassing Pitch Copro Series, Pitch Digiseries and Pitch Fundación SGAE.
Attendees will also be able to access multiple conferences. In one of them, Luis de Zubiaurre Wagner, deputy director at Spain-based TV analysis company Geca, will address TV fiction audiences behavior.
In another, Sophie Valais, senior legal adviser at the European Audiovisual Observatory, will talk about European Co-production landscape.
José Miguel Contreras, co-founder of Globomedia and a former LaSexta CEO and head of LaCoproductora, an open platform for indie executive producers, will deliver a keynote speech.
Industry activities will take place at Baluarte, Navarra’s Congress Center and Auditorium of Navarra, in downtown Pamplona.
Taking advantage of tax credits, Italy scripted TV business is growing bullishly.The Audiovisual Producers Association recently estimated that, over the last two years, Italian fiction content has attained a collective budgetary production value of €360 million -380 million ($402 million-425 million).
A clutch of series – “Medici,” “The Young Pope” and “My Brilliant Friend” – have broken through to international recognition.
Taking the reins of RAI Fiction in 2012, Andreatta has driven it into international expansion with series such as RAI-HBO co-production “My Brilliant Friend” which scored a whopping 30% primetime share in Italy. HBO and RAI renewed it for a second season before its December finale.
“International co-productions represent a strategic area for RAI’s TV series, today more than ever,” Andreatta said.
She added that thanks to the collaboration with major partners (HBO, AMC and Netflix, among others) and the success of ambitious titles that are a powerful assertion of identity such as “My Brilliant Friend,” “The Name of the Rose” and the “Medici,” “acclaimed series that were successful and sold all over the world,” “RAI’s TV series have seen a great renaissance in recent years, consolidating the appeal of Italian writing, production and talents worldwide.”
Through the Alliance with France Télévision and ZDF, RAI has also forged strong links to produce international projects with a strong European identity.
“This is an achievement of the utmost importance for RAI, but one which must be a starting point for broadening horizons still further and relaunching Italian excellence in serial narrative in the international mainstream,” she added.
Italian companies at the Pamplona meeting take in the Roma Lazio Film Commission, Banijay Studios Italy, Cattleya, Culture Synapses, De Agostini Edittore, EndemolShine Italy, Fox Networks Italy, Mediaset, Palomar, Effetv Festrinelli Group, Publispei and Tim Vision.
Conecta Fiction 3 is supported by the regional government of Navarra through business development arm Sodena, the Navarra Film Commission and the SGAE Foundation, with the collaboration of Baluarte and Clavna, the audiovisual cluster for Navarra.
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