Today in Venice, at the 68th Venice Film Festival, Cinecittà Luce and Telecom Italia presented an agreement that will see the two organizations joining forces to support and leverage Italy’s film heritage. The agreement has been reached in order to accelerate and enhance the process of conserving and digitizing the Istituto Luce’s Historical Archive – one of Italy’s most important elements of cultural heritage – while at the same time raising awareness about the archive via new methods of distribution.
Starting this September, 150 films and documentaries will be available via pay-per-view, along with more than 200 items of video content accessible free of charge through Telecom Italia’s Cubovision®, Web TV and IPTV services.
Franco Bernabè, Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia, says: “We are proud to be able to help preserve and disseminate this significant cultural heritage. The Istituto Luce Historical Archive contains films, documentaries and images that represent Italy’s history, and is a priceless source of collective memory. This venture confirms how technology can serve culture and play a vital role in leveraging and disseminating culture.”
Roberto Cicutto, Chairman of Cinecittà Luce, says: “The agreement between Telecom Italia and Cinecittà Luce fits perfectly with the spirit of our enterprise’s mission. Preservation of the Istituto Luce Historical Archive is one of the activities of general interest that falls within our remit. The dissemination of archive material, documentaries and classic and contemporary film underpins our efforts to culturally promote the Italian film industry. Leveraging our product is an indispensible step for our enterprise’s business development. Achieving this with Telecom Italia via its new Cubovision platform enables both companies to create film culture-related growth, and is an extraordinary opportunity.”
Telecom Italia is joining Cinecittà Luce at the 68th Venice International Film Festival for the presentation of new films and special events.
This includes the presentation of some of the most eagerly-awaited items at the 68th Venice Film Festival:
Marco Bellocchio’s “In The Name of the Father”, in a new version cut by the director to mark his Career Golden Lion, forty years after it first went on release; a version of Roberto Rossellini’s “India” restored by the Cineteca di Bologna; Alessandro Piva’s “Pasta nera”; Hernàn Belòn’s “El campo”; and Francesco Pasinetti’s “I piccioni di Venezia”, marking the centennial of the director’s birth.
At the same time as the world premiere is shown in Venice of Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s “This Is Not a Film”, Cubovision® will be offering Italian viewers this extraordinary testament to the life and living conditions of a director oppressed by a regime that blocks the right to free cultural expression.
Cinecittà Luce content will join and enrich existing Telecom Italia Cubovision®, Web TV www.webtv.cubovision.it and IPTV library content. Three special dedicated Cinecittà Luce channels are being set up for this purpose: film, documentaries and Cinecittà Web TV, which will be sub-divided into “A spasso nel tempo”, “Come eravamo” and “Doc”, and carry free content.
Venice, 5 September 2011
