Netflix is investing two hundred million euros spread over three years on the Italian creative community that “is very much admired all over the world for the quality of its stories and productive abilities,” as announced by Kelly Luegenbiehl, VP of International Originals for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The world leader in Internet entertainment with 139 million subscribers in over 190 countries landed in Italy at the end of 2015 and has to its credit the production of TV series such as “Suburra” and “baby” and also an award-winning film “Sulla mia pelle”, the story of the last seven days of Stefano Cucchi.
The investment was decided with the aim of replicating and multiplying the success of those productions. Luegenbiehl adds, “It was exciting to see made-in-Italy Italian productions reach a global audience. This investment will allow us to achieve a greater number of productions in your country and we hope that the global audience will appreciate”. From her point of view, these resources will also offer further opportunity “to support the Italian creative community more broadly”. In 2018, nearly 50 thousand people – counting casts and extras, together with the technical and production staff – worked on original productions and Netflix co-productions in Europe, and of these about 9,000 in Italy. And it is no coincidence that the investment announcement was warmly welcomed by enterprises of the sector.
Francesco Rutelli, president of Anica (Associazione Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Audiovisive e Multimediali) says he is convinced that “long-lasting investments in partnership with Italian producers, both for feature films and TV series, will have positive effects in our country. Dialogue has opened with the association for the growth of the supply chain and employment.”
Even Giancarlo Leone, President of the Associazione dei Produttori Audiovisivi, is certain that “the strengthened relation between national independent producers and Netflix will contribute to an increasingly significant presence of the platform in Italy and to a successful international showcase of Italian productions worldwide.” Leone also envisages “a further growth of the entire creative supply chain on the global market”. We shall see.
What is certain is that in 2019 a series of projects have been announced or are in development, including the acquisition of the audiovisual rights to the book Fedeltà by Marco Missiroli and the adaptation of Winx Club into a live action series.
Fonte: La Stampa